How to provide award-winning customer service

Show Notes

What’s better than one Stevie Award? Two! For the second year in a row, the Buildertrend customer success team won an award for their outstanding service. On todayโ€™s episode of โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ Tom and Paul are talking Stevie Awards and award-winning customer service with Buildertrend technical service manager, Marge Haley. Marge started out as a Buildertrend Coach and has been with the company for three years.

Tune in to the full episode to hear all about why Buildertrend works hard to maintain a superior, award-winning customer service experience and get insights from our team on how you can provide next-level service for your business.

Tips for providing good customer service

  • Treat others how you want to be treated
  • Be empathetic and treat them like a human
  • Have conversations and get to know them while youโ€™re helping them
  • Answer their questions and proactively answer questions that may stem from the original question, so they donโ€™t have to call back
  • Make it a point to end each phone call on a positive note

How to build a customer relationship

  • Provide your personal contact information and let them reach out to your directly
  • Hear their stories, relate to them and get to know them on a personal level
  • Learn to listen and give your customer the opportunity to teach you
  • Give customers the opportunity to vent their frustrations
  • Maintain a positive attitude

Get to know Marge

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Transcript

Tom Houghton:

You’re listening to โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ your guide for a better way to run your business. I’m Tom Houghton.

Paul Wurth:

Hey Tom. I’m Paul and boy, am I excited!

Tom Houghton:

You’re excited? I’m excited!

Paul Wurth:

I’m trying out new things, but I am excited because we’ve got one of our favorite segments, episodes.

Tom Houghton:

Sure.

Paul Wurth:

A Buildertrend employee is on the podcast with us. That’s what I was trying to say.

Tom Houghton:

There we go. Okay. We love all our guests.

Paul Wurth:

All of our guests are very interesting.

Tom Houghton:

We’ve had some incredible guests this month and we’ve got more coming your way. Continuing that today for us is none other than Marge Haley, technical service manager here at Buildertrend. I’m a big fan of Marge.

Paul Wurth:

Huge fan.

Tom Houghton:

I think that maybe I’m vice-president of the fan club, probably.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

I don’t know if I got the official title. We’ll leave that up to Marge to tell us here in a second, when she starts talking.

Paul Wurth:

If you ever let her.

Tom Houghton:

If I ever let her.

Paul Wurth:

That would be good.

Tom Houghton:

Marge, how’s it going?

Marge Haley:

It’s going. It’s a miracle that you guys were able to keep me from talking because that doesn’t happen very often.

Paul Wurth:

That’s why you’re so good at customer service.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right.

Paul Wurth:

Marge was nominated internally by our team to talk to us about our award-winning customer service team.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right because we’re going to answer the question, “What’s better than one Stevie Award.”

Paul Wurth:

Two.

Tom Houghton:

Two Stevie Awards is the answer. That was a good dramatic pause for that.

Paul Wurth:

Now that the listeners are thoroughly confused, not to get into the Stevie Award too much, but what is that? Can you give us an idea about what a Stevie Award is?

Marge Haley:

A Stevie Award is going to be an award directly for our customer service. We won bronze last year and we won silver this year. We’re moving on up.

Paul Wurth:

We know what the goal is next next year.

Tom Houghton:

2021, you better watch out.

Paul Wurth:

I think this is a national award, so it’s a huge symbol of pride for our team that, if you talk to any of our clients and many of our listeners, it’s one of the first things I hear from our client base when I meet people in real life at the different trade shows that may never happen again.

Tom Houghton:

They’re going to happen. Stay positive. They’re going to happen.

Paul Wurth:

Often, when we’re at something like the International Builders’ Show, which we’ve been to for 13 years in a row, it’s a great opportunity for us to meet our clients. Literally, the first thing they say is they call out and they say is, “Is Marge here? Is Jeff here?” They’re people that they love talking to here at Buildertrend and they want to go meet them in person. I think that just speaks volumes to your team over there, so congrats, Marge.

Marge Haley:

Thanks. That’s really awesome. Our customer service team at Buildertrend is like none other, and you hit the nail on the head with the meeting them in real life. It really takes it up to the next level, being able to meet them face to face and have that conversation with them.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, Buildertrend University is a great example of that. People become friends for life after that the happy hours.

Tom Houghton:

That’s true. It’s both sides of it. We love meeting our clients and I really do believe our clients love meeting us. I think it’s really great to put the name to a face in real life. Marge, give us a little background on you, how long you’ve been at Buildertrend. Of course, I know this, as the vice president of the fan club, but tell the rest of the listeners.

Marge Haley:

I’ve been at Buildertrend, next week will be three years. I started as a Buildertrend coach and was in that position, moved up through the team lead position and everything like that. Then about five months ago, I got transitioned to be a TSM, so I’m a technical service manager now.

Paul Wurth:

That sounds like a really boring-type title. It does just when you hear it for the first time, but our technical service managers are across the board. They do have the best knowledge of our platform and can really dive into the deepest corners of maybe a question a client has, unique to their business and their process, or maybe taking suggestions from clients as well. Marge and our technical service managers are the most knowledgeable people we have amongst a group of very knowledgeable people.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely.

Marge Haley:

For sure, and I think the best part of the position and why I love being a TSM, is it’s something different every day. Whether it’s an in-depth QuickBooks issue that where I’m dealing with or I’m helping the new onboarding team become better onboarding trainers, I get to help externally and internally, and every day is completely different. I still have contact with the clients. I think that was always really important to me. I’d never want to be in a position at Buildertrend that I don’t get to talk to the clients, but then also being able to be the point of contact or the go-to for our internal team is pretty cool as well.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Some people are surprised to know that we have a big internal team. We have upwards of 170 people in the customer service side of things and that’s all in an effort to be the biggest resource we can to our clients, the close to 15,000 contractors that use us. It takes a lot of bodies and it’s a super important role when we bring on new people to teach them the culture of our customer service team. Marge does a great job of that.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

Marge, you were so successful. Just on the highest level when you talk about communication and things like that, what are some good tips to give good customer service? Even if you’re listening as a contractor, what would be good tips for a contractor to give good customer service?

Marge Haley:

Yeah, I have always related my customer service skills back to how I was raised, treat others how you want to be treated. When I have a question and I have to call my internet provider or my cable company and I get kicked down the road or I get partial answers, or I’m left with not a complete answer, I’m frustrated at the end of the call. Whether they actually helped me or not, I am still frustrated.

Marge Haley:

At Buildertrend, my thought process is when I answer that call or I take that escalation, that I’m going to not only answer their question, but I’m going to make sure that maybe the next two that they have because we fixed what they had, if they run into another issue or another workflow problem, that I’ve already stepped up and they already know how to resolve that next issue. Just making sure that they end that phone call on a positive note and that they’re not going to have to call back possibly that day or that next week, because we’ve already answered those questions.

Paul Wurth:

Being in customer service in any industry is pretty tough because typically when you’re getting a phone call, people are stressed out, people are upset. Whether it’s the product’s or the service’s problem or not, that really doesn’t matter. The person on the other end of the phone is, again, stressed out and is maybe going to be taking that out on you. Being empathetic and listening and treating them like a real human, I think, is a pretty easy universal tip for everybody. Not easy to do, but a great skill set that a lot of our team has.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Marge Haley:

I will say that our clients are amazing. I don’t honestly think that I’ve ever been on the other end of a call where I’ve been upset by what I heard, which is probably unheard of as far as dealing in customer service for three years. They know that we’re here to help and by being able to have conversations while we’re helping them and getting to know them personally, rather than having it feel so structured while they’re on the phone, I think helps them know that we’re on their side, we’re on their team. We’re not going to give them bad news. We’re going to make it right with them as well.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, a lot of what our team preaches is that we want to be partners, non-equity partners in your business. We’re here to help. I think that’s a great comment, Marge, because the whole team lives by that philosophy.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, let’s talk more about building that customer relationship, obviously, because I think that’s a huge part of delivering great customer services is that relationship side of it, that this is not just a, “Hey, I’ve got a problem, please fix this.” It’s a, “We’ll take care of that,” but also, let’s build something on top of that. Maybe, Marge, you can share some tips of how you handle that when you get on the phone with somebody and start in that process of building that relationship.

Marge Haley:

Yeah. My position at Buildertrend is unique. Most of our onboarding trainers and our account executives, and a lot of the roles within the onboarding experience, have a book of accounts or they deal directly with specific users where I deal with all of our users in a lot of different ways, I guess I would say. As a coach, I had a different relationship-building experience than I do now.

Marge Haley:

Now when I’m talking to the clients that I speak with, they’re having probably a little bit more of a major issue, let’s say, and it may take a call or two or three to get back to them. They feel confident knowing that they have my direct email address, they can call me directly. It’s not, “Oh, call back into the 800 number and give this reference number.” No, they have my personal contact information. They can contact me directly.

Marge Haley:

When we’re on the second or third phone call, when we’re testing the issue and trying to see if we can make those resolutions, typically those happen with their QuickBooks and Buildertrend connection. I’m there to help support that. We get to know each other. They’re talking about the dog that’s sitting behind them. I’m a sucker for a good dog story. I get to hear all about that. Or they’re telling me what part of the country that they live in and what’s going on in that area. I like to hear about the United States or anywhere my clients we’re talking to are. It’s being able to have a personal level while we’re on that call with the clients to help them with their business as well.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good. You’re looking for those relation points and what kinds of connections you share with this person. Like you said, animals, where they’re at in the country, tell me about that, the place that they’re at. That’s really good tips. I think it breaks down the barrier of somebody just coming in and saying, “I need you to do this.” Instead, it’s like coming to your friend instead of just coming to the help desk or something.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. I think that, especially these days when we’re limited to being face-to-face, throw the camera on, see people in their space, see them and see their dog and their kids. I think that also breaks down a wall of people just treating somebody else just like the next ticket or the service line. It really makes that human connection, which I think is great.

Tom Houghton:

I’m going to ask a hard question here, Marge. I think if our listeners don’t know you, which I’m assuming most of them don’t, if you get to know Marge, one of the things you get to know about her is she’s so positive and you just exude happiness, which I think is such a great personally trait of yours. I think we try to hire people, in the customer service department, like this. If you get to meet our customer service folks, they are all a rare breed of humans that are just so positive and so willing to help.

Tom Houghton:

I’m curious. This is where the hard-hitting journalism question comes in. Is this something that you can teach to somebody or do you think that this is innately in people? I guess for our listeners out there, when they’re thinking of how am I better at customer service, are you literally just thinking maybe it’s a limitation of actual people or can we teach around this and coach around it? How have you seen that done here inside Buildertrend’s four walls as well?

Marge Haley:

Well, I do believe that Buildertrend does a phenomenal job of hiring customer service reps. There’s a lot of people in our department that can talk to a brick wall and have a great conversation. I think that really helps you. Having personal social skills I don’t think is always teachable, but I definitely think that the relationships that are built within Buildertrend help with when we are trying to coach our clients as well.

Marge Haley:

There are definitely, in my years of working here, that I can definitely name a few that were definitely more reserved or not as outgoing. I truly believe the relationships that have been built at Buildertrend have helped with that expressing themselves and being more outgoing, I don’t want to say outgoing, but more socially willing to be a part of a group and things like that. Do I think having super social skills is coachable? Yes, but I think it helps with the team that’s around them as well.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, and I will say Buildertrend does a great job of setting expectations and practicing what they preach. If you’ve been to our headquarters, which we encourage everybody to come, whether you’re just passing through Omaha or coming to Buildertrend University, on the walls everywhere, you’ll see our motto and what we stand behind, and one of those is attitude.

Paul Wurth:

I think attitude is a big part of it. We require a positive attitude when you’re in these walls. We know that that’s hard all the time and take your break. That’s why we have a great space here, but it’s a good thing that Buildertrend does that. It creates a culture of positivity. It’s easy to be negative. That’s an easy one. Everybody’s got that skill set, but the skill set of building a positive way you interact with people, I think can do you good in everything you do.

Tom Houghton:

Speaking of negative, which is always a bad transition, but just for a second, let’s talk about what happens when you are dealing with a frustrated customer. I think this is something that, when you’re dealing with customer service, everyone has to remember this. As far as we’re concerned, I think this translates across all businesses because there is a client, a customer transaction that’s happening there, and if something has gone wrong, it’s our job to make it right, as a business. I think business owners can put themselves in these shoes here. Marge, any tips on how to deal with those frustrated customers?

Marge Haley:

I think the easiest way and what we’ve been coached on, and how I have handled a frustrated customer from the beginning is just listening to them. There’s a reason for their frustration. We may not be able to fix that frustration right now, but giving them a chance to maybe vent about that frustration, and also not feeding into that frustration. Understanding where they’re coming from, but also explaining maybe why something’s not working or why our program doesn’t function that way. Giving them the chance to vent their frustration gives them comfort knowing that at least someone’s listening.

Paul Wurth:

Absolutely, listen. Honestly, I grew up in sales with Buildertrend, but also, I’ve talked to thousands of our clients. You’d be amazed if you just listen and not talk. Eventually once they’re done saying something, they feel like they’ve been heard and then you can get down to actually fixing things.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. I teach a class for Buildertrend University. One thing that I teach in the class is about reviews, because obviously people sometimes will leave bad reviews. Usually, you can cut those off if you see the conversation going south by just having one of those conversations. It’s not a conversation of you asking like, “Hey, how can I fix this?” It’s asking, “Hey, what’s wrong,” and just sitting back and listening. The majority of the time, and you hit the nail on the head there, Marge, people just want to be heard. That’s all. You’re providing that service to them. You’re providing that customer service there.

Paul Wurth:

This is like a therapy session. I can apply this in all aspects of my life.

Tom Houghton:

That’s right, if we all just listen more.

Marge Haley:

Really, our customer service has been great about listening in general, mainly because to get better at our job is we have to listen to our builders. I never built a house before this job, I never remodeled a kitchen, but I was able to learn the construction process just from listening to our customers. I tell all of our new reps, “Listen to your customer. You will only be a good rep if you listen to your customers.” I think that is definitely something that we benefit from is by giving those opportunities for the builder to teach us.

Tom Houghton:

Let’s talk about positive moments.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, let’s transition back to positive.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, everything’s lifting again. I just was feeling that. Give me a story of a favorite customer moment that you’ve had, a customer interaction.

Marge Haley:

I’ve had so many, and I have to say that most of them tie back to either the Builder Show or Buildertrend University. Having sign in come up, onboarding them, teaching them the basics, getting them to where they’re actually using the program and seeing them be successful, then have them come to Buildertrend University and then those ongoing conversations from there, that Buildertrend University really changes the conversation. You feel like you know that person.

Marge Haley:

I would say definitely having those in person interactions are going to be some of my favorites. Going to the dinner on the first night, getting to talk to them outside of the Buildertrend walls or through Zoom and actually having those personal conversations that you wouldn’t get outside of that, I would definitely say that’s my highlight of my client interactions.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good.

Paul Wurth:

From the outside perspective, because I’ve know seeing our customer success team grow from, well, the first one, all the way to what they are today, I truly believe that everybody who’s in that team is invested in the success of the contractors that come on board. The reality is that our product, in its intent, solves problems. Nobody who comes on board at Buildertrend says, “I have a perfect company.” They’re coming because there’s some streamlining that they want to do within their business. I can tell you firsthand, seeing the reps like Marge, people get true joy out of seeing success from our clients.

Tom Houghton:

I think that’s so different than, as a small business owner, when you approach working with a vendor. You’re choosing who you’re going to partner with, basically. I think that’s what sets us apart. It’s like when I buy a license of Microsoft Office, I’m not thinking, “Oh, I’m going to get to talk to somebody at Microsoft about Word or Excel.” We’re an integrated part of your business and we’re there 110% with you every step of the way because we want you to succeed, because we want the industry to be better. I just think that the team echoes that.

Paul Wurth:

Absolutely. We need to talk about Marge. We’ve hyped you up quite a bit here. You do this whole thing.

Tom Houghton:

I do want to get to Marge’s fun facts. I do have one last question. I want to peel back the curtain here and talk real quick about super teams. This is our amazing name that we’ve come up with for our teams here at Buildertrend. Can you give us some insight into super teams and how that’s helped improve our customer experience?

Marge Haley:

Right. Before the first of the year, we did these integrated teams. Our sales team and our customer success team sit on the same floor. When a signup comes in from the sales team, it goes directly to the same region of CS reps. What’s cool for me is I’m on the TSM team. There’s a group of individuals that we’re a team together, but we’re also embedded within the super teams.

Marge Haley:

Every team has a TSM that they get to work directly with and that is really beneficial for a lot of reasons. Not only does my sales team reach out to me for elevated questions so I get to talk to our potential clients before signup, but I also have that direct communication with them once they sign up and then as they go through the whole pipeline of retention and so on. They’re staying close knit. We all help each other out.

Marge Haley:

If there’s a training that needs to be covered, it can be covered within the team, so they’re really staying within the same cohort or people. It makes it feel like they’re not getting pushed around; they’re getting to work with the same group.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s exactly right, Marge, and to expand that even more, we talk a lot about, as a business, the customer life cycle. We want the customer life cycle to be really, really seamless and the message to be very clear. From the moment you find out about, or however you find out about Buildertrend, to the first interaction of our sales team to the onboarding process and education and training, all the way to higher level tickets with Marge, the super teams really make that one family and one consistent message. I think you nailed it there, Marge. That was definitely the intent and it’s been going really well.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome. It’s that time.

Paul Wurth:

It’s Tom’s time.

Tom Houghton:

Tom’s time for three fun facts with Marge, and these are facts. I’m going to ask questions that will allude to facts about Marge.

Paul Wurth:

There you go. We need to workshop this a little bit. I like it, but maybe we need a better marketing name for it.

Tom Houghton:

We’ll work on it.

Paul Wurth:

We’ll workshop it. That’s our promise to you, our listeners.

Tom Houghton:

2020 will be the year we figure this out. Marge, question No. 1. You mentioned animals earlier. Tell us about a favorite animal in your life.

Marge Haley:

I have an American Bulldog named Bob. He’s 140 pounds. He sleeps probably 18 hours a day.

Paul Wurth:

Wait. What did you say?

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, he’s huge.

Paul Wurth:

American Bulldog’s 140 pounds?

Marge Haley:

Yes, he is the upgrade from the old English, so he is the biggest of the Bulldogs.

Paul Wurth:

A big dog.

Marge Haley:

He is giant. He sleeps a lot and he hates the summer.

Paul Wurth:

Must be nice.

Marge Haley:

His name is Bob.

Paul Wurth:

Bob, the Bulldog. It sounds like a kids’ show. It’s good.

Tom Houghton:

Just a lot of sleeping in the kids’ show. Second question. Like I mentioned earlier, you get a lot of joy out of life, so just tell us one thing that brings you joy. You mentioned some of that is just solving customer’s problems, but what else? Give me something else.

Marge Haley:

Sunshine. It brings me so much joy. The summer coming around, this is my time to shine. Being able to work from home now, I’m taking my computer outside every so often to suck in that vitamin D. Family, friends, social interactions, maybe a Miller Light. Those are great. Those all bring me happiness.

Tom Houghton:

Just one. You’ve got to be careful with those.

Marge Haley:

Yeah, I can’t have too many.

Paul Wurth:

I’m hijacking number three.

Tom Houghton:

You are?

Paul Wurth:

Okay, I know you’re a social butterfly, Marge. That’s why everybody loves you. It’s why Tom’s vice president of your fan club. Do you miss bringing in all the baked goods and things that you do for the team?

Marge Haley:

Definitely.

Paul Wurth:

I feel like that’s your secret weapon, by the way, too.

Marge Haley:

Yes, I was raised very Polish. That’s what you do. You bring in treats. You win everybody over with treats.

Paul Wurth:

You definitely do that, yeah.

Marge Haley:

Yeah, I definitely do miss working in the office. This work from home has been a nice, I feel like, reflection and slow down a little bit, but being able to be face to face with everyone, see everyone, I definitely miss that as well.

Paul Wurth:

Well, we miss your food. We’ll figure out a way to get that. We’ll be in the office sometime. Yeah, it’ll happen soon.

Tom Houghton:

It will. We’ve got it hermetically sealed or something like that.

Marge Haley:

I’ll bring hand sanitizer.

Tom Houghton:

There you go.

Paul Wurth:

I’ll be the taster.

Tom Houghton:

You’ll volunteer? You’ll go first?

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome. Marge, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and talking about how to deliver a great customer experience. Of course, I think you’re a huge part of that. I think our entire team is a huge part of that here, so we’re so happy you’re a part of our team and that you came on and shared your experience with us.

Marge Haley:

Thanks for having me, guys. It was really fun.

Paul Wurth:

Thanks, Marge. Appreciate you.

Tom Houghton:

Love what you heard? Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our Show Notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode. You can find it at Buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ Appreciate you.

Marge Haley | Buildertrend


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