At RV Gap Coverage, how we treat our owners has guided our growth and success. Though challenging, we want to share these principles for your growth and success. The character of each business should be defined by the professional responsibilities and ethical obligations to act with integrity, honesty, competency, and confidentiality. We call it our “Bill of Rights,” which incorporates a preamble and amendments written as a pledge and expectations.
Does anyone talk to you about what the owner-vendor relationship ‘rights’ should look like and what should occur in your business transactions? The time has come to stand up and say the Owner -Vendor’s relationship should reflect a return to principles for an honest and fair discourse in this ‘prospect to customer’ journey.
The Customer Bill of Rights – A Written Pledge
A pledge should define the commitments and actions to partner with your vendor, customers, or tenants for mutual satisfaction. The ability to answer the following questions can help you determine your company’s pledge:
- What characterizes your professional attitude?
- What commitments are made for a follow-up? Are there any?
- How do your employees treat customers or tenants? How do you treat vendors?
- Are you communicating promptly and clearly? What does that look like?
- Do you keep your promises and honor your word?
- Is respect given when responding to others with their time, keeping appointments, and completing promised work within a proper time frame?
Consider understanding what’s important to your customers and what their expectations are. Ask the following:
- What priorities and focus should a tenant expect during the service experience?
- What characterizes the experience? Is there honest, courteous, respectful service at all times?
- Do tenants value your services? Is their privacy respected? What level of accountability should they expect?
- Is timely and secure access to solutions provided when a problem arises?
- Are there other essential rights to bring attention to?
Besides the promises made to your valued customers, what internal commitment have you made to your team?
YOUR TEAM
- What are your standards of training that uphold and/or improve performance standards?
- How do your employees’ job satisfaction and competency reflect on your customer service?
- Do your employees receive acknowledgment and share in the company’s successes?
PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Define your highest priorities to deliver customer/tenant services.
- How are your tenant’s concerns and losses handled during claim time?
- How proactively do you handle reviews and complaints?
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
- Are you defining how you work with your community and tenants as a good business citizen?
While there are entire books written on this subject, we’ve tried to summarize it with:
“Words We Live By”
- Be responsible, be accountable and be quick to apologize if you are wrong. MAKE IT RIGHT – ALWAYS!
- Be known in our industry as the most responsive and caring company about our customers and tenants.
- Work as “partners” with our customers to make everyone more successful.
- Strive always to work smarter, not harder.
- To earn our customers and their tenants’ trust and confidence in our products and services, we MUST do what we say!
Your “Take-Aways”
In a day filled with mixed messages, low standards, and a lack of transparency and truth, we believe it’s time to stand out. There are enough copycats and slick operators in our industry. Now we need authentic, committed businesses that care about our teams, clients, and our community.
What about you? Are you willing to expect a Bill of Rights from your vendors and hold them to it? Are you, owner/operator, ready to provide your customers/tenants (even your vendors) the same promise of excellent customer experiences in your own Bill of Rights?
Hopefully, other vendors will take up the call to set higher standards, and Owners will share these standards with their operators, managers, and tenants. When all parties involved in business transactions set this new bar for customer experience between each other, the result will be an atmosphere fostering growth and success unmatched by competitors.
We’d love to hear from you! Please share your feedback and experiences as an owner/operator of good or bad customer service received or given, which we may share in future articles. All input about your vendor or customer/tenant journey is welcome! Write us at info@rvgapcoverage.com.
