As you are reading this stop for a moment and go look at your van. How does it look? Are you proud of it? Would you like your best customers to inspect it right now? I am writing this in the dead of winter so your service vehicle(s) may understandably look bad due to road salt, ice, and general soil. But if you were to walk in to a UPS warehouse right now I doubt their trucks would look all that bad!
How about the inside of the van? Is it clean and organized? I hope there aren’t any McDonald’s bags sitting on the floor and that you have picked up any soggy brochures that are mixed with all the rest of your “floor debris”! (Or even worse- a few empty Budweiser bottles to fall out and break in front of the customer! Don’t ask Steve Toburen about this experience!) Don’t worry about the Jon Don catalog; you always need that in a handy spot.
You may think that a messy van doesn’t affect your cleaning, but it does. The same goes for your uniform and grooming. All these things affect your attitude and that affects the quality of the job. If you have been to SFS then you know all about Moments of Truth. (MOT) Everything you do is subliminally going into your customer’s “Mental Checking Account”as either a “debit” (negative MOT) or “credit”. (positive MOT)
Tom Peters, management guru, has a new book about to be released and you can download the first chapter for free. Tom is listing these Moments of Truth, he just doesn’t know what to call them! Check it out for a few good tips.