Chicago area roofing contractor Thomas Kral (Reliableamerican.us), has his administrative employee conduct a follow-up "lead audit" call after his salespeople complete their appointments.
He says in the contractortalk.com forum: "The purpose of the lead audit is to meter the performance of the sales rep and to judge the overall satisfaction and professionalism of our company in the eye of our customer base. "
Elements in the audit call include:
Customer name:
Phone number:
Estimator name:
This is (caller's name) with (caller's company). I am with the Customer Service Dept. and I would like to ask you a few questions about our recent meeting with you. First of all please understand that I am not making this call to try and sell you anything. We are very interested in how our company performs with customers that have purchased a product from us and those that choose someone else. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?
1. Did our estimator respond to your call in a timely manner?
2. Was the estimator knowledgeable about the problems and how to fix them?
3. Did you receive a written estimate with all work and repairs described?4. What can we do to make the estimate easier for individuals to understand?
5. If you had work performed by our company, were you satisfied with the quality and professionalism of the workers?
6. Would you recommend our company to your friends and neighbors?
Thank you for the time you spent answering these few questions and if we can be of any assistance to you in the future, please do not hesitate to call us.
Item six is the key question for the "Net Promoter Score" by Fred Reichheld -- who advocates that the key measure of your success is whether on average your clients are so enthusiastic they will recommend your business to others -- or at least, are not so dissatisfied that they will badmouth it!
This is a common-sense approach that makes a lot of sense for any contracting business. You'll receive valuable feedback, catch potentially unhappy clients before they become 'haters', obtain potentially useful testimonials, and most significantly, receive a quick early warning indication if your sales team are messing up their calls.