Thursday Tech Tip: How To Alienate Customer and Drive Away Business

Usually here on the W.L. May blog we often try to share tips and suggestions to help build your business and be more profitable. Maybe that's not your thing. Today we offer some tips that can help if you want to drive away customers and lose repeat business.

• Be hard to reach. Don't answer your phone and don't return calls. They say time is money. Don't let a potential customer take that away from you, after all they probably want your help or something.
• Make an appointment-but don't show up on time. So that pesky customer managed to track you down, now what? To make sure they are unhappy, set up an appointment. This works best if it is an inconvenient time for them. Let them know they need to be there and then don't show. Don't bother calling either. They'll call you to reschedule if they want to get their machine fixed.
• Arrive dirty and/or smelly. You know you are probably going to get dirty while you fix a machine, and honestly you were up kind of late last night so why bother showering and putting on clean clothes just to get dirty. Don't forget, you are doing them a favor by fixing their machine. So if you smudge some oil on their counter or smell like b.o. plenty, that is their problem. If you are smoker, light up while you do the repair. If they want to have a clean house they can clean after you leave. You do repairs, you aren't a maid!
• Look like an amatuer. There are several ways to do this. First, don't wear a uniform. A uniform can make you look like a pro. Now think about your service vehicle. Leave off the identifying signs. Those will probably just cause others to call you for repairs. At  the home, make sure and park in their driveway. For real style points and to create that extra  "I don't care about you" effect, make sure your service vehicle is leaking fluids. 
• Don't actually do a repair. Bang around a little bit. Scratch your head a bit and tell them what a unique problem they are having. Give them a real high quote for doing the job and suggest that they would be far better off to replace the unit. Give them an invoice for your "diagnosis" collect your fee preferably a high one and payable only in cash.

So that's it. While we are obviously kidding that you would want to hurt your business, it is true that if you follow these tips you can do a lot to chase away new business. If you would rather grow your business, look elsewhere on this blog for advice and check out our Facebook page for other news and tips as well.

Thoughtful Thursday: Service Commitment Integrity

The W.L. May logo has three words on it that define our mission at W.L. May. Those words are "Service, Commitment, Integrity". How do we live those words at W.L. May?

• SERVICE  Service is at the core of everything that we do at W.L. May. That means that when you call us you will reach a live receptionist and not an automated menu. We take the time to help you research needed parts, even the ones that don't come up on the search word option of the research programs. We can work with you to consolidate orders and save you freight overhead, Shipping to your customer? No problem, we can do that too!
• COMMITMENT Commitment refers to our commitment to your success. Whether in the appliance repair trade or just a weekend project, our commitment is to YOU. This means tips to help install parts. It means active participation in trade organizations that are working to educate the trade on matter both business and technically related. It's this blog, and Facebook and Twitter, It means providing you with the tools to run your company successfully. It means giving our all to serve you better.
• INTEGRITY Integrity means a lot in a business that is as trust dependent as the appliance repair industry. We live that integrity by maintaining consistent pricing and maintaining a deep inventory. Our website shows you live actual inventory at that moment, not what was true several hours ago. Integrity means that when you have a credit due on your account it is given to you as quickly as possible. It sounds simple, but often overlooked: JDWYSYWD Just Do What You Say You Will Do. That's how we do things and it has served us well since 1923.

Our customers enjoy the service, commitment and integrity that we offer. If you haven't tried W.L. May as a source for your parts, let us show you the benefits of our approach to the part business. We'd love to help you out, and like they say in those late night TV ads: "Operators are standing by."