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Why I’m Ok with a B Rating on a Report Card

 Why I’m Ok with a B Rating on a Report Card

Receiving Customer Feedback

Now, more than ever before, online report cards, customer testimonials and consumer feedback are everywhere. Before the Internet, consumers had to rely on calling up their friends and neighbors to ask for a referral or to check up on a service company before hiring them. Today, it simply takes a few clicks on a web-page to research and discover sometimes more than you want to know about a company. I do, at times, miss the old days. Don't you? Customer feedback really is a good thing with or without the Internet. Yet one of the good things about today's technology is it does help keep companies honest and striving to be better.

Evaluating My Company's Mission

Close to a decade ago, Chism Brothers freshened up our Mission Statement. This was right before online reviews really got popular. We changed it from saying, "Hire people of good character and training them to be fine craftsman" to read: "Providing a one of a kind experience simply by doing the right thing." We changed the focus to the experience of the customer. We did not want to be the cheapest or most expensive in town. We wanted to provide a service that our customers would love and feel was worth the cost. The goal was to keep customers happy for life!

A Perfect Report Card Is Not Always The Most "Honest"

At the end of each project, my paint crew leaders hand the customer a report card and kindly ask if they'd give their honest feedback. We basically only get "A" Report cards back with glowing written testimonials. It feels good! Yet I wanted to hear more. I wanted to know if my customers were truly satisfied with my company. Along came Angie's List. Angie's List is a place where consumers are free to write their "real" opinions of companies they've used in the past. Receiving reviews from Angie's List has been helpful, because it does seem like the place where people might share more of their honest opinion. I have reviewed all of the reports on Angie's List about Chism Brothers Painting and have a pretty good takeaway of how my company is doing.

Most of the time, our Angie's List reports come back with all "A" ratings. I have only received a few C, D, and F ratings from a few folks who just were not happy. We've tried our very best to make it right with those who felt we did not live up to our mission. In most cases, we've satisfied them. Yet the only time my company really receives a B rating is over PRICE. That used to bother me. I felt like maybe my clients thought I was charging too much and that I was not providing real value. Yet, the more I read over their comments about my company: what they liked and why they would definitely use us again and refer us to friends, the more OK I became with the B rating over price. Giving us a B on pricing just means we were not the "bargain basement" company and that was a good thing! I guess you can say it is like me buying organic groceries. I tend to purchase non-GMO products and eat mostly organic fruits and veggies. These items cost more, yet I would never go back to buying, what I feel, is unhealthy and low cost food. I want to live and maintain a healthy lifestyle, so I choose to eat and buy things that are good for me.

So I am glad to get the feedback that our costs are not the cheapest but that people are very happy with the overall experience of working with Chism Brothers Painting. That was our mission: provide a great experience! As we are only human, there are times when one of my painters might have a bad day and/or not communicate with a customer in the way he/she knows is best. So, in those circumstances, when issues surface, we really do try to do the right thing. We won't make a customer feel defensive or frustrated that he or she hired our company.

I will wrap up with this quote from a late 19th century watercolor artist and philanthropist, John Ruskin,

It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better." John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

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