Mastering Effective Lead Communication for Carpet Cleaners with Rachael Southgate

Understanding psychological triggers like rapport building, addressing customer pain points, and empathy in communication maximizes booking success.

Rachel Southgate [00:00:00]:
Yeah. So I think for me, I really enjoyed actually talking to customers. I love the customer service industry. I’m not afraid to make that follow-up call, deal with those conflicting situations. So if you have someone that’s angry about your carpet cleaning that was done for them, I’m not afraid to talk to them about those sorts of things. And I just got really good working with the team and working on upselling, understanding how everyone’s business works and how we can actually make them successful. So we’re not just, you know, coined phrase call center. We wanna understand how all your processes work and how we can make those bookings maximize them and get as many in as possible as well too.

John Clendenning [00:00:42]:
Hey. Welcome back, everybody, for another exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success podcast. Today, I’ve got a really exciting interview and conversation having with my good friend Rachel Southgate. I have known Rachel, we figured out, for about 20 years, which sounds crazy.

John Clendenning [00:01:31]:
It makes you feel old. And I’m way older than her, so I make I feel way older. But, what Rachel, I’ve known her as part of a franchise network I was a part of, and and then even after that, answering phones for our our cleaning service. She runs a business called The Call Studio we’re gonna talk about. But, ultimately, she is on here to teach everybody in the community the importance of answering your phones, kind of some of those things maybe why you shouldn’t be answering your phones while driving and on your hip in front of a customer or trying to do the job that you are supposed to do as the business owner, which is outreach into the community. You can’t be standing there at a chamber meeting or talking to a commercial partner, and your phone’s ringing and you’re not answering it because, you know, it’s, you know, you let it go to voicemail, and now you the speed to lead doesn’t happen and all that kind of stuff. So there’s a lot of reasons we always talk about in the community that you should have somebody else answering your phone that’s dedicated, that understands it. And now in today’s world, we’re gonna go beyond the world of talking about phones, and we’re just talking about communication channels because we got a lot of shy people out there that don’t necessarily call, but they wanna text.

John Clendenning [00:02:41]:
They want them email. They want a message. But speed delete is still important. They don’t wanna wait a day or 2 for a message back. They they expect it within seconds or minutes, just like they do, you know, with a with a a phone conversation. So, anyways, I’ve got Rachel. That is the background. And, how’s it going, Rachel?

Rachel Southgate [00:02:58]:
So, yeah, like John said, we’ve known each other forever, couple decades. I’ve been in the carpet cleaning industry for 20 years now, and I’ve ran 2 call centers. So not just locally in North America, but all the way across the pond in New Zealand as well too.

John Clendenning [00:03:15]:
Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:03:16]:
So, yeah, very well versed. I ran a 24 hour call center as well too. So 247 all the time. And I know all the ins and outs of carpet cleaning, whether you’re part of a franchise network or a private carpet cleaning system. We know how to work with those clients and make them successful. So, yeah, it’s really fun.

John Clendenning [00:03:39]:
Yeah. So talk a little bit about, so 20 years ago, you were just a kid. Yeah. So what brought you into the whole world of of call center and and all of that kind of stuff. Like, I know you worked with a connection of ours, Peter Snow, in Chilliwack, BC, and that’s where you’re you’re still out of today as the the the BC area. But what what kind of got you into it? How did you start, and what’s gotten you up to now being, like, the director running the company?

Rachel Southgate [00:04:06]:
Yeah. So I think for me, I really enjoyed actually talking to customers. I love the customer service industry. I’m not afraid to make that follow-up call, deal with those conflicting situations. So if you have someone that’s angry about your carpet cleaning that was done for them, I’m not afraid to talk to them about those sorts of things. And I just got really good working with the team and working on upselling, understanding how everyone’s business works and how we can actually make them successful. So we’re not just, you know, coined phrase call center. We want to understand how all your processes work and how we can make those bookings maximize them and get as many in as possible as well too.

Rachel Southgate [00:04:48]:
So, yeah, I think it’s just and building a good staff. Everyone, you know, it’s a good work environment. We love what we do. We love helping people. And then over time just grew it. And, you know, we stepped away from working with a franchise network, and now we’re more, you know, on an across board, system where we can help anybody. So, yeah, I think it’s just the desire to do well and see people do well. That I think is just so for us.

John Clendenning [00:05:16]:
Yeah. The fact that you’ve been in that for so long, and then talking about sort of, like, the team because, I get a lot of the there there’s all different degrees of cleaners. There’s the independent guy going, oh, I’m just gonna answer it on my phone until I get busy enough. I’m gonna talk a little bit about why it’s actually the opposite mentality. Get somebody to answer the phone, and you will be busy enough. Totally different. But also then who’s answering? Like, again, you run a service, but you also train a team how to answer phones. So some of the people on the call are gonna, like, yeah.

John Clendenning [00:05:46]:
I need I need to level up my staff. I’ve got people that answer the phones, but they’re not really good at it, or they’re okay, but we don’t really track anything. We don’t really know close you know, like, closing rates and stuff like that. So, you know and then now we’re talking in a world of multi communication channels. I said it’s not just like, you know, go back in the day and the the yellow pages was where all your your your leads came from and your customers called your phone number and everybody just call call call call. Nowadays, there’s people that wanna, again, as I said, text you, Facebook Messenger, and the team has to learn how to transition off of a text message to get them on the phone or if they don’t want to, sell by chat. So there’s a lot there to unpack, but talk about sort of, like, maybe the the the the training of of somebody, the how you’re doing it, how you would think somebody would be be maybe training a staff that they brought in, or their wife who’s doing it while they’re out on the road if it’s a very small company or something like that. Some of the things that you see in the training world of teaching somebody how to actually be a good communicator and land jobs.

Rachel Southgate [00:06:48]:
Yeah. No. Absolutely. So the nice thing is is because I’ve been in the industry for so long, I know to how to book the carpet cleaning. I know how to sell the service, and then I carry those traits over to my team. So I’m watching how they take and handle those calls, how they educate the customer, how their upsellings going their job average. So you’re not having to worry about those key performance indicators.

John Clendenning [00:07:11]:
Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:07:11]:
I take care of all of that. I’m also watching. So we actually use John’s program, LEADPRO, and we’re making sure that those text messages, those Facebook messages, those calls are being answered right away. So we’re not waiting, you know, 30 minutes, an hour. It’s within the 5 to 10 minutes, right? So we’re just wanting to be as prompt as possible. We’re constantly, also as well too with John’s program, Lead Pro actually calls right to us directly. And because I have trained CSRs sitting there waiting for that call, they’re going to take it right away, talk to the customer and book in the job right away as well well too. So

John Clendenning [00:07:50]:
Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:07:50]:
Yeah. And it’s and the nicest thing too, it’s a personalized call center system too. So you can sign up for programs where everything’s a coined phrase. They just have certain ways to say it. Yeah. But I want to make it a professional, personalized system. So we know your business well and we’re, you know, human to human contact, whether it’s messaging, answering an email or actually talking to the customer and we’re doing it promptly and professionally. So, and another thing too that I’m really good at with my staff is I wanna train people to be kind, compassionate.

Rachel Southgate [00:08:24]:
You know, some of these situations are stressful. You know, you’ve spelt something on your carpets or there’s, you know, some kind of family situation and they’re here they’re to listen, take it all in, and then book the job. Where if you’re on-site, you know, answering out of your pocket, you just can’t do the same or have the same patience as well too, which is totally fine. But, yeah, we’re just an all encompassing service for sure.

John Clendenning [00:08:49]:
And there’s a lot of psychology baked into that too because, again, when you just answer the phone, every business owner says, oh, I’m just great at at booking jobs and answering the phone. If you listen to them, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but they just They may become across a little genuine because of the guy that does it. They can answer some spotting and staying questions, but they’re not actually being tactical. They’re not necessarily tracking their own numbers. Oh, I’m great at booking. You start running the numbers, and maybe they’re 50%. Or somebody who is actually sort of really trying to to listen, help explain why the company is different, unique. You don’t have to be the lowest price.

John Clendenning [00:09:23]:
You just you have to have, you know, something in the marketplace that the client is looking for that stands out. And if you can get that across, that might take a few more minutes of conversation with the customer that you’re rushing again. And, oh, I gotta get back to this job, but, you know, I’ll call you back later. It doesn’t work. Right? So there’s a lot of psychology that the girls on your you know, the team. Yeah. I’m not sure if they’re all girls or not. I just I mean, I just need generalization there.

John Clendenning [00:09:49]:
But the the team is answering the phone calls and, yeah. And they’ve got to like, they’re gonna be leveling up and understanding again, not as you said, not only the their your your own customers. So whether it’s your own team, like, your own person in in house, like, if if somebody listening to this going, okay, I need to train up my own people, understand that they under they need to understand the psychology of a sale. They have to understand, understand, phone etiquette and text etiquette and and all of those kinds of things. On top of knowing how to use ServiceMaster and House Car Pros and Marquette and enter the job and not book 2 hours that way, 1st job of the day and 2 hours that way, the second hour of the day. And have the technician go, and I’m driving all day. I’m not cleaning. And and that kind of like, there’s a lot to learn before they go on maternity leave, or decide they found another job, or, you know, move out of state, or out of province, and you have to hire and start training somebody all over again.

John Clendenning [00:10:41]:
Which, as you know, that we talked about earlier, is the challenges I’ve had. Like, I mean, in the 27 years I ran my cleaning businesses, I had at least 6 or 7 primary staff. I always talk about Heather. Heather was the one that we enacted a lot of stuff together. But pry like, I mean, I I had, a girl out of college. I’m trying to remember her name right now. But my my in 1997, 8, and part of 1999 before she left. Then I hired Shield, then I had Tasha, then I had, Jackie.

John Clendenning [00:11:09]:
And, like, again, some of them short lived, some of them a little bit longer, some of them you finally got them trained up on the phone, and then, oh, I moved my my husband got a new job and we’re moving away. And it’s like, oh, you know, and things like that. So there is an advantage to a company outsourcing, which you and I were talking about where it’s just all they’re doing is handling the bookings, the phones, and that, you know, that customer support of reminding them that the job is coming up. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff as well. But also just literally, I guess, one other point that’s really important is there’s a lot more people that are, that maybe English is a second language that have bought cleaning businesses

Rachel Southgate [00:11:50]:
that

John Clendenning [00:11:51]:
can still run their business and sell their services, but it’s hard to answer the phones and get past that part to book. And another option or another reason for, yeah, outsourcing a, a call like this would be for the language barrier alone. Right? So in the communities and stuff like that, we know a couple people, you know, in in our world. You and I both know that that fit into that boat. So, I guess if we just talk a little bit about, that psychology of a sale, like the caring part of it. But how do you train that into somebody? How do you, you know, you listen to them, you redirect them, but what is your sort of onboarding of a new employee look like that actually gets them to, you know, get it?

Rachel Southgate [00:12:30]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So we have, of course, CSR training programs that they go through. So it’s a whole series of videos and then they’re actually sitting with us and actually learning the process, seeing exactly what we do before they start attempting those calls. So it’s about anywhere from about a 2 to 3 month training process. They go through all the different testing and whatnot, get comfortable with it and understanding your businesses before we actually just throw them onto the phones.

John Clendenning [00:12:59]:
That’s key right there. 2 to 2 to 3 month process. So how many guys have hired somebody in the morning and said by the afternoon, why aren’t they answering all the calls and booking everybody? Right?

Rachel Southgate [00:13:08]:
Yeah. Absolutely.

John Clendenning [00:13:10]:
It’s Yeah. This is a skill that you need to learn, and you need to get better and better at and you need to track the numbers. So running a business, yeah, give it was easy. Everybody would do it, as they say. 80% of small businesses fail in the 1st 5 years and the other 80% of what’s left fail in the next 5 years. So it’s about 4% survived to year 10. And part of the reason why is you’ve got to be a student of the business, of of being in business. And if one of the things is I don’t wanna have to train somebody to do all of that, but I do understand that a good a good communicator, you know, phone, text message, up you know, selling the job, upselling is worth their weight in gold because it can double the business overnight just by taking the same volume of contacts and converting more of them.

John Clendenning [00:13:55]:
One of those key principles. So conversion’s a big part of it.

Rachel Southgate [00:13:59]:
Yeah. And I think another big piece too with the CSRs, detail is everything and getting things correct as well too. So in our programs programs that we use, you know, you’re getting a full first name, last name, detailed address. What is your access to your building? Email address on every booking.

John Clendenning [00:14:17]:
Yeah. There’s a big one right there. Just pause there for a second. The number of people we talk to that it’s like, hey. You’ve got a database. Yep. Cool. How many emails do you got? Oh, we don’t collect emails.

John Clendenning [00:14:28]:
I’m going, we’re in 2024. Come on, people. Let’s go. We need to be able to email market, text message market, pick up the phone, call people back 6 months, a year later, stuff like that as, you know, to reactivate the databases and all that kind of stuff. And if you don’t have email addresses, it’s you you’ve got, like, oh, people don’t like giving it to them. Well, you’re not asking correctly then. Right? There’s a right way and a wrong way to ask that you’re gonna get an email address from almost everybody, maybe except for the 98 year old woman who never had an email in the 1st place. And I’m sorry, honey.

John Clendenning [00:15:00]:
I don’t have email. Okay. I can’t get yours. But done well with the with proper etiquette and the proper training, everybody should be every customer should be giving an email address because they do want the follow-up message of what we just discussed today and and and. So

Rachel Southgate [00:15:16]:
Absolutely. Yeah. And with our program too, we do confirmation emails. So that’s an option. You don’t have to go with it. You can do the email confirmation through your system or through ours, but that’s a key element because we want the technician to get into the door and make that job booking actually happen. So the more confirmations we do confirmation calls as well too. It’s just all about that communication and connection to actually make the job happen.

Rachel Southgate [00:15:42]:
Another key part too is lead source. So you’ll see this in, big part of ServiceMaster is tracking those lead sources. I want my CSRs asking, how did you find our phone number today? You know, how did you actually reach out to us? Okay. Was it Google pay per click? Was it through a flyer or an email newsletter? So that’s a really nice, part of especially for our newer clients. They love that we’re able to actually show them how their marketing’s working. So that all comes within the training as well too.

John Clendenning [00:16:12]:
Yeah. And that’s that’s really important. That’s huge because it’s, you there so we always talk about, the 3 ways to like, the the 3 axioms necessary to grow a business, and it’s maximize your opportunity to generate an ideal lead, an ideal inquiry, maximize your brand impressions, and maximize your conversions. So if you are in Google guarantee, Google, local service ads, pay per click, Facebook, you’re in all the Facebook groups, and maybe you’re running some Facebook ads. You’re telling stories of happy customers. So you’re do you’re doing social media stuff. You’re in the Google Maps. You’re organically ranking.

John Clendenning [00:16:47]:
You’re doing door hangers and postcards and yard signs. You’re meeting real estate agents. You’ve got lots and lots and lots of poles in the water. Some of those poles in the water are generating brand awareness. So that down the road when they go looking, oh, I’ve seen these guys. So they’ll tell you on the phone, well, you know, my my last source of attribution, what just caused it right now was I was on I I I googled you and found you on the pay per click, but knowing that there’s there’s some brand impressions of Vans signed up nicely and in the neighborhood help as well. Not having technicians spinning out the window in the drive through helps a lot, you know, things like that. You’re really generating the positive marketplace, and then you’ve got somebody in, you know, on the on the phones or working with the customer going, hey.

John Clendenning [00:17:29]:
And how did you hear about us? So we can track that well in a professional manner because and the number of kind times that we audit existing clients. So people that come to us to wanna become, you know, maybe do use our marketing services or ask for a consult or something like that. A lot of times we mystery shop them ahead of time just so I know what’s going on. And I get the team to do that, and and we’re going even some people that are good on the phones don’t ask all the right questions. They don’t they kinda get into price first, everything else second as opposed to, hey. They’ll tell me a little bit more about it and sort of nurture the call a little bit and make sure you understand where customers going and where they came from before you, you know, you start talking about packages and pricing and all of that kind of stuff.

Rachel Southgate [00:18:10]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And another thing is to, getting to know the customer and per actually presenting that on the work order. So I want my CSRs to tell that story to the technician. Okay. Please clean these areas. They have pets in the home, or there’s, you know, a pet urine odor in this certain area. I want them to give the full story before the technician gets on-site.

Rachel Southgate [00:18:31]:
What did they discuss price wise? What’s their estimated time of arrival window? And can they get into the property and how? So it’s it’s giving the full picture as much information as possible before they even, you know, get into the door. So Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:18:46]:
Yeah,

Rachel Southgate [00:18:46]:
it’s a nice encompassing service.

John Clendenning [00:18:48]:
And do you have some, like, some tips that you guys train into your, that you’ve done yourself over the years and then train into the team, sort of to, sort of convert an inquiry. I’m just calling around into either an on-site quote, an actual job, obviously, the goal is a job, maybe an on-site quote if the if the company we always recommend that if you can’t sell the job, sell the quote. And if you can’t sell the quote, at least sell the follow-up information. What’s the best email? Let me send everything we just talked about so that you can call them back the next day and say, hey. Did you get that information? Are you ready to go ahead with that? Because 99% of businesses stop at the first call. They don’t even make that next day call, let alone let it drip for a little while like carpet cleaner or lead pro does. But the very least, call and try and land the job. What would be sort of some of those, kind of ways that you would that you train the team to sort of convert those objections or I’m just calling around into potential bookings.

John Clendenning [00:19:46]:
Just tease that out. Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:19:48]:
Yeah. So absolutely. So we have a nice system with we call them price objections.

John Clendenning [00:19:53]:
Yep.

Rachel Southgate [00:19:53]:
So when they’re not able to close a job, that’s what we’d allocate against their closing ratio. But we’re getting the CSRs to ask, what is your email? Can I just send a bit of information over to you? So in all those price objections, we’re averaging actually about 95%. The customer, even though they didn’t book the job initially on that call,

John Clendenning [00:20:12]:
we’re

Rachel Southgate [00:20:12]:
getting the email address. We’re sending them a nice package of information. Here’s the estimated quote that we talked about with the areas provided or items that you need to have cleaned. Yeah. And then we follow-up on that until we actually can get a booking or to the point where the customer is like, listen, like, I’m good for now. I’ll get in touch with you. Yep. But, yeah, it’s a nice follow-up system that we track and maintain.

Rachel Southgate [00:20:34]:
So and then that information goes into your system, regardless of what program you’re using as a prospect. And then you can email market to them as well too going forward. And it’s surprising. The conversion rates are anywhere from about 60 to 75% upwards with those initial price objections. So it’s pretty cool.

John Clendenning [00:20:53]:
That is cool. Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:20:54]:
Yeah. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:20:55]:
Well, it is so I always talk about sort of, like, you’re in business. When you’re a business owner, if you wanna be sort of Lord of the Rings, you’re you’re you’re the keeper of the lists. Right? So, because you need to have a list of customers. And ideally, a list of customers is, like, on a good, better, best scale, good enough. You need to at least have that good, like, a list of customers you can market to call out to. Better is have them broken down. Do they have kids? Do they have pets? Do they live in a nice neighborhood? Are they, you know, rental kind of ideas so that you can actually break apart your marketing even better. You need to keep a list of inquiries, leads if you wanna call them that inquiries, that maybe didn’t book this time because what if they went with the $99 special guy and realized that was a mistake, and they’re not gonna realize like, they’re not gonna need another cleaning for 6 months, a year, whatever.

John Clendenning [00:21:44]:
But at that point, if you’ve been dripping on them in their inbox for a year about happy customer stories, why you’re different, all that kind of stuff, you’ve now got a lead database 10 times bigger than your customer database that you can constantly work for a next year or 2 until they unsubscribe kind of idea. Right? So if they’re just not interested, they’re gonna unsubscribe, but you can be in their inbox till they’re ready for you, and then even still reach out, make the odd phone call. Hey, it’s been a year since well, you know, just wanna see if you’re interested this year to trying us out kind of idea. There’s lots of ways to build that lead list, and then you build the list of of of referral partners, your interior designers and made services, real estate agents, flooring stores, all that kind of stuff. And now you’re the keeper of these lists and the manager of lists. So a business owner should be sort of thinking about how many lists he’s building and how they’re working it. And, again, your team, whether they do it in house themselves or what has to be thinking in that terms of what am I following up with that is going to sort of indoctrinate the client into why we’re different. So maybe you thought the price was a little high, but the reason why it’s a little bit higher than everybody else is we’re doing so much more, and that starts to come across.

John Clendenning [00:22:53]:
They go, oh, now I get it because they read the email or the second or third in a series of messages that Yeah. All a better story. So, you know Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:23:02]:
No. Absolutely. Yeah. No. The key is definitely follow-up, and not being afraid to do that as well too. Right? The key the team is really educated that, you know, we wanna build our customers, our clients’ database, and make them successful. So that’s the main thing I train them on. So that’s why it’s important to do that follow-up even if they didn’t secure the booking initially.

John Clendenning [00:23:22]:
Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:23:23]:
And they’re really good at that. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:23:24]:
Now one of the math quest or one of the math points I like to put out is say, for example, so there’s always there’s there’s levers you can move, like small hinges swing big doors as they say. And if you’ve got, say, 10 inquiries coming into business a and business b. Business a is their average job is $200. You know, they they advertise a $149 special. They can upsell a few customers. Their average job is $200. They have no follow-up. They have to a customer once a you know, after the job, they have no follow-up to leads, inquiries.

John Clendenning [00:23:57]:
They literally just book them or not at all. And then you’ve got another customer, gets the exact same 10 inquiries, but they their average job is, say, $400 because they they talk about packages of services. They have different things that they can provide the client that’s unique to them that they and then they follow-up with that person, you know, monthly with maybe a monthly newsletter. They follow-up with the leads to convert them. They follow-up with the cost customer, and they have a lifetime value of a client. What we’ve shown is that the lifetime value of a $200 discount client, or customer, I like to call them, is 1 to 2 visits, and they make might make $400. And you might only get 2 out of 10 booking with you. So you just made $800, right, for 10 inquiries.

John Clendenning [00:24:40]:
The other business follows up, answers the phone well, answers messages well, books at about a 50% minimum booking rate on cold to start with day of, and then can drip on another 2 or 3 over the next, you know, week, month, year Yeah. In an ongoing lead nurture. Their average job is $400. Now they’ve landed 7 of them over of the same 10. Now they’ve got $28100 instead of 800. They’re $2,000 more top line revenue, but the lifetime value of those those clients is now 4, $5,000 each. So now they’re at, like, $35,000 lifetime value versus the other guy that got 800. So the math of growing a business isn’t more leads.

John Clendenning [00:25:24]:
It is the math of growing a carpet cleaning business, a home service business, is better communications, better conversions, better follow-up, everything we just talked about because it actually doubles and triples companies. And you a lot of businesses are focusing on the wrong angle of it, unfortunately, is what we noticed is that Yeah. They tend to focus on the transactional value. Well, it’s not worth getting somebody to answer my phones because I I’m only making $200. Well, you’ve got a couple of things to change. Make more money on

Rachel Southgate [00:25:52]:
your job. No. Absolutely.

John Clendenning [00:25:53]:
And then yeah. Convert and chase better and stuff like that. So, what have you noticed the changes in technology? 20 years in the industry has been a long time. I know you guys had a fairly sophisticated call center 20 years ago. Like, I I remember walking through it when I you know? But 20 years later, the world’s changed like crazy. What are some of the technology things that you’re noticing that, again, not just chat and single like, carpet cleaner lead pro, single source messaging services, but what other things are you noticing just in the industry in general around around Yep.

Rachel Southgate [00:26:23]:
So we started off with, you know, handheld phones, actually writing out jobs and then sending scanning and emailing them over to technicians. So we’ve transitioned to you know, you can work anywhere in the world essentially from the different programs that we have, the CRM programs that we use. And we have an online based phone system, which is beautiful and the tracking and the reporting is amazing. Everyone sees everything in real time. So as we load a job, the technician is seeing it right away. And then, yeah, the biggest thing is all the different avenues to contact a customer. You know, before there was just one and then email was introduced and then there’s chat. But now we have access like, for example, through your program with LEADPRO, we can do all the different channels.

Rachel Southgate [00:27:13]:
So you have the Instagram, the Facebook, the chatbot, email, everything, and then your system nicely follows up everything as well too. And then our team is ready to go. They get the notification right away on their computer. They call it out and they deal with those leads right away. So it’s just like instant all the time.

John Clendenning [00:27:34]:
Or before

Rachel Southgate [00:27:35]:
it was more a slower process. So that’s probably the biggest thing. And people want answers right away as well too. And that’s one thing with my team. The KPIs are really tight in that area. We need to answer right away. Like, don’t stall. Don’t wait the 15 minutes.

Rachel Southgate [00:27:50]:
Don’t wait wait the 30. It’s definitely, like, you know, it’s a go a heavy hitting go and, yeah, just a quick world. Everything is fast.

John Clendenning [00:28:00]:
Speed to lead is the the biggest thing that’s it’s just everybody is just everything’s faster instant. And one technology that I’m not happy with right now just and maybe AI will will deal with this someday properly, but I’m not a big proponent of, self booking buttons on a website. I think a repeat client could self book because they know the pricing. They know what the company is about. If they’re already sort of all in in a bag of chips on your company, they know that. But without it, you can easily become a commodity. So the lowest price wins. Well, if somebody goes to your Housecall Pro’s booking page and go, well, I’m not paying that price, they have no context what that means.

John Clendenning [00:28:39]:
Whereas somebody who can influence them by text, by chat, by, you know, by voice, and say, hey. Here’s why we’re different. And they get an objection. Oh my god. That price is ridiculous. Well, actually, let let me explain a little bit what’s included, what’s not, all that kind of stuff. If you are calling around, here’s all the things that you should ask about because we include that automatically. Those are upsells for all these discount guys that you still need in a proper professional job anyways.

John Clendenning [00:29:03]:
You it’s hard to explain any of that in a self booking button. So everybody wants, like, as carpet cleaners, as business owners, we want, oh, I would just like to show up, my schedule completely full, automated by, you know, some AI and people just doing picking their own times, and I just have to go out clean and come home. Well, you’re a service technician, then you’re not a business business owner. Strategically thinking is, how do I influence more people to buy from me? And that’s where, you know, again, speed to lead, a role like you guys have, really, really fits in. The other thing you guys do really well is the overflow. So outside of the hours, you know, should a should a carpet cleaner be sitting on a, you know, on a boat on Saturday morning, fishing and answering his phones? And then we’ve heard of, like, Leanne loved her to death up in in, Sudbury, but, yeah, Leanne and Jamie would answer their phones while out, you know, literally out on the boat on the like, that that wasn’t a fake story. That’s a real story. And it’s, like, oh, gosh.

John Clendenning [00:29:58]:
No, guys. Get somebody else to answer your phone. So go go enjoy your day. Right? But even after hours and and stuff like that as well. So not just the window of 9 to 5, but outside of the overflow, you guys, like, you guys, have more capability or capacity that way as well.

Rachel Southgate [00:30:15]:
Absolutely. Yeah. So one of my goals with the call studio is to allow business owners to actually have a life. So, yes, you own a business and, yes, it’d be gonna be stressful and time consuming, but let me take care of the longer hours. So we operate 6 AM Pacific Standard Time. So we’re just located in Vancouver, BC all the way till 5 PM Pacific Standard Time, Monday through Friday. And then Saturday, we are 7 AM Pacific Standard Time to 3 PM.

John Clendenning [00:30:45]:
Mhmm.

Rachel Southgate [00:30:45]:
So it gives you a really good range of coverage.

John Clendenning [00:30:48]:
Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:30:48]:
And you don’t have to worry if someone’s answering your phones. We are doing it, and you’re getting the notifications when the job is being booked. So, yeah, it’s great. Right?

John Clendenning [00:30:57]:
And you can even do what we did.

Rachel Southgate [00:30:59]:
Have your coffee in the morning.

John Clendenning [00:31:00]:
Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. But have

Rachel Southgate [00:31:01]:
your coffee in the morning, and your phones are still being answered.

John Clendenning [00:31:05]:
So Yeah. Yeah. No. And this should be like it. You should be able to go about your day and do other things because, again, if you’re if you’re not answering your phones, even you say, well, I can answer my phones. You can, but you can also go meet real estate agents. You don’t wanna be out cleaning, and you wanna you could also be stopping into past commercial clients every 3 months just to wander in. Hey.

John Clendenning [00:31:23]:
I’m the owner here of the business. I wanna just come and take a few spots and stains out for free. Is Donnie around? Hey, Donnie. Blah blah blah. The the rep that you have at that facility just here to do this, checking out, you know, any stuff. See, you know, we’ll make a bit of an assessment to see if any of the traffic lanes need to be touched up soon. But I’m just literally here just to do a free spotting. You can do all of those PR things that that keep clients and land clients and get referrals, because you’re not worrying about, oh, gotta take a call.

John Clendenning [00:31:48]:
I feel busy. Right? Kind of idea. And one thing that we did, that worked out really really well is, we had some at some point, people, like, you know, somebody coming into the office to help do some mailings and stuff like that. So Heather went on maternity leave and then came back and then went on maternity leave, then COVID showed up. And we just said, screw it all in in a bag of chips on you guys. Mhmm. But in between that, at points, we had periods of time where it was like somebody was available only in the mornings and not in the afternoons. We had prior to Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:32:19]:
All of this. And we’re just we have one button set up on our phone. We press the button, the calls are forwarded to you guys. We unpress the button, the calls are in our office. And that was that’s simple as well because, you know, I guess we didn’t talk about sort of the pricing, but you charge per booking of service, not just not hourly rate of, oh, we’re attending to all of your calls. It’s when you book a serve book a a job is when when you when you bill for. That’s what you bill for, which kind of allows it to be add that little bit of flexibility as well. It’s like, hey.

John Clendenning [00:32:51]:
I’m available to take some calls on Tuesday morning. Let me just pick the phones myself if I really want to. I’m not good, but they can. And then they can just forward them when they go off to a job or something like that, and it allows and right through to, you know, 8 o’clock at night east EST, they’ve got phones being answered sort of things.

Rachel Southgate [00:33:08]:
Absolutely. And we have a few clients too where, you know, they do wanna take those calls once in a while. So they’re actually on a busy no answer setup.

John Clendenning [00:33:16]:
Yeah. So if

Rachel Southgate [00:33:16]:
they don’t pick up within the first two rings, then it steps down to us. And then hopefully, like, you know, then we’re getting it by the 3rd ring. About 3 rings is kinda your max you wanna go with customers nowadays because people, you know, they don’t have the patience and I don’t blame them. Right? So there’s a couple different options. You don’t have to be full time or you can use us, you know, when you go away on vacation for that month and explore the world.

John Clendenning [00:33:40]:
Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:33:40]:
We can take care of your phones for you as well too.

John Clendenning [00:33:42]:
Yeah. And we know some people like yeah. Friends of ours, Mark, when he goes scuba diving, you guys answer his phones. Yeah. And then another case study would be, our good friend, Mikey. Like you guys have answered. You have been Mike’s back office. We don’t need to give away names every Mike.

John Clendenning [00:33:59]:
You know, you are, but you’ve been his back office for almost the whole 20 years, I believe, isn’t it?

Rachel Southgate [00:34:04]:
Yes. 20 years.

John Clendenning [00:34:05]:
A $1,000,000 carpet cleaning company in a in a nice sized town, and they’ve never had phone answering, like, people in in house at all. He’s got technicians, crews on the road. He’s bought other cleaning companies out and expanded, and the entire time, it’s just been you guys at the call studio as that part of the growth mechanism. He’s never had to worry about that and run a very successful company where he doesn’t have to show up every day if he doesn’t want to because he runs the business. He does. He’s a hardworking guy, but he can also go hiking and stuff like that and not have a problem. So, you know Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:34:39]:
Yeah. So even when his technicians might not show up for the day, we’re still there.

John Clendenning [00:34:43]:
Yes.

Rachel Southgate [00:34:44]:
And we’re dealing with, you know, rescheduling. Let’s still save those bookings and do those confirmation calls. So he definitely now has an all encompassing package

John Clendenning [00:34:52]:
Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:34:52]:
Just because of his volume of work. So, you know, we’re doing the pre confirmations and the post calls, the follow ups and all that sort of thing. But I feel in a way, like, not only has his team been great, but we’ve been a big part of that success because we’ve always been really reliable with his phones and doing that upselling and taking the time with his customers. So yeah, it’s cool. We still, you know, a lot of customers actually still recognize us. They know that we’re a legit company because they’ve been dealing with my CSRs for so long. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:35:23]:
So And you’ve had a lot of, like, I mean, you’ve had a lot of staff that have stuck around and been around. Like, you know, again, it’s not one of those jobs that somebody normally stays in, like, as an employee, you know, like you have because, again, growing up and running the company. But, but, I mean, Jill’s been around for how long? And, you know 10

Rachel Southgate [00:35:41]:
years. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:35:42]:
Yeah. Just know Yeah. Knows the business, knows the industry, in and out, loves the job. Like, that’s, you know, and, you know, and it it isn’t necessarily the easiest job. It’s it’s hard sometimes, as I’ve said in my 27 years, to get somebody Mhmm. Stick long enough where they wanna show up every day in the office, do all of the stuff, answer these phones, do all the, you know, route and deal with grumpy technicians sometimes, and grumpy customers, and all that kind of stuff. Yes.

Rachel Southgate [00:36:07]:
But Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:36:08]:
When you do find that right person, you know, again, if they move on when you have a service doing it, it’s up to you to find multiples of these and weed through them and do that kind of thing. So Yeah. It’s like you’re you’re trying to find the best of the best one sticks. You You can rattle through a bunch. Another one sticks kind of idea, and it saves the business owner the headache of, oh, gosh. I gotta start training all over again. You know, that kind of thing as well. So we talked about yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:36:36]:
No. It’s huge Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:36:37]:
I think it really is. So, and one thing that you and I’ve been talking about a little bit is because again, as as I said that that that my Heather in it was was the was the the person who came on and said, John, throw anything at me. Let’s let’s add more to this instead of just answering phones. So as I learned new marketing stuff, outbound calls and you and I have talked about that as well. Like, again, Mike, we just talked about has a full service program, which you guys go all the way up to that level for somebody who needs it, and customize things beyond just answering the phones and the day before confirmation call, but and putting it into the schedule and all that stuff. But the other thing you and I’ve been talking about is one of those, like again, I’m a shy dude. I do podcast. I do all this stuff.

John Clendenning [00:37:17]:
I played in bands. I stood on stages. I don’t pick up the phone and call somebody hardly at all. It’s just there’s, like, just one of those things. So Mhmm. I find that I get a I make accommodations for myself. That’s, you know, how we you know, if I forget names, I always mention the name 2 or 3 or 4 times until I remember the name. So next time, hey.

John Clendenning [00:37:35]:
How’s it going, Tony? Or whatever because I’d said the name so many times. I I make little games to do that kind of stuff. One of the games I made to get in front of commercial, custom potential customers, like, condo building managers and superintendents and stuff like that, and and different types of referral partners, real estate agents. Was I had Heather just take a list, pick up the phone, make 10 calls or reach out to 10 people in a couple different steps if they didn’t get she didn’t get them on the first, and try and book a lunch meeting with me, and send over some stuff and chat about it, and become like, she’s basically I found the list. She became my drip campaign, and she reached out about the, you know, meeting for a coffee about a referral relationship where I would then sit down, have the conversation, and, hey, before you decide, I don’t even want you to say yes to the referral relationship, mister real estate agent, until I come to your house and do, you know, 4, $500 worth of free cleaning to show you our process, so that you feel comfortable referring us to your your list. That was always my pitch. It’s like give give give give. Okay.

John Clendenning [00:38:40]:
Now you wanna refer us? Okay. Now I’m gonna teach you how to refer us better once you said yes. I’m gonna teach you Yeah. How to keep keep that going. And you and I have talked about the fact that that’s that’s, like, right in your wheelhouse. It’s if somebody everybody should be doing that and outreaching to help grow their business, but it’s really just a matter of a list and somebody who’s willing to call.

Rachel Southgate [00:39:00]:
Right? So Yeah. So that’s another service we have to offer. So outbound call services. So you just provide us with the list, and we’ll make it happen. So

John Clendenning [00:39:08]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:39:09]:
It’s it’s nice for our team. Right? So they’re used to talking to people all day long. So what’s, you know, no harm in just calling someone, touching base in a casual way, and making that connection. Okay. You want you know, and you’re not certain over the phone that you wanna schedule it. Not a problem. Let’s just book for the technician to come on-site, take a look at things, and go from there. So, yeah, that’s another.

Rachel Southgate [00:39:29]:
And we have an array of administration. So if you’re not just wanting if you’re not needing your calls to be covered as well too, our outbound call services, we do have admin support packages as well too. So if you’re just wanting us to do your leads and your emails, we can help you out with that specifically. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:39:45]:
Yep. And we gotta figure out a way for the people that, because I I’ve talked to too many carpet cleaners. Hey. You got a database to use ServiceMaster or anything? No. I’ve got it in my phone or I got a notepad. And it’s like Yes. God, we gotta find a way to scan that in and get that over to you guys so you can put it into like, you know, build them to put it into an actual build database that can be marketed to. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:40:06]:
Yeah. That’s again, you can’t run a business 20 years ago, let it go loan in 2024 without a database. That’s again, you’re the keeper of the lists. Write that down. So

Rachel Southgate [00:40:16]:
Absolutely. Yeah. And there are so many beautiful options out there now too. There isn’t just the 1 or 2. So Yeah. They just need to select 1, and we’ll make it happen and work your customers into it. It’s really that simple. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:40:29]:
Oh, yeah. So putting a pin in all of this, like, obviously, I think we we we stress the fact that somebody’s gotta be answering your phones as dedicated, not driving in the car, not in front of customers. You’ve gotta work your business and be out in the public. So you shouldn’t be answering your phones. Even if you only do it, you’re the guy in the truck, you only do 2 jobs a day, it’s still worth it to outsource that because you’ll double your you’ll double your business. You double your your percentage just by somebody trickling down on these people and and calling back and emailing and helping out that way as well. Just for, you know, all of the reasons we talked about. You guys have a solution specifically for the carpet cleaning world and the cleaning the cleaning world because that’s what you’ve aimed at, which is unique at Jill’s office or a general answering service where it’s like, can I take a message? Yes.

John Clendenning [00:41:15]:
We’ll have we’ll have the owner call you back is is useless because that person is picking the next person on their phone or the next person on their screen, going to the next tab. And by the time you call back, I’ve already booked with somebody, you know, kind of idea. So that a generalist of a call answering service does it doesn’t make sense. AI is not there. There’s no way AI is having a conversation that does anything more than, can I have your name? Can I have your email? Thank you very much. Somebody will call you back again as well. So we’re in a world where human to human contact is even more important, I think, anyways, as AI comes out, but it’s definitely necessary. So how do people get a hold of you to learn more about what you do? What’s the best way for them to reach out to The Call Studio?

Rachel Southgate [00:41:56]:
Yep. So we have a beautiful website. It’s just the call studio dot com, and you can just fill out our contact form, and it will come right over to us and help us out. Or as well too, if you like to pick up the phone, our toll free line, it’s 1-800-665-990.

John Clendenning [00:42:12]:
90 90.

Rachel Southgate [00:42:13]:
So you can reach out that way. Or if you love Instagram, it’s just The Call Studio. So you can check out our page on there as well too and message us.

John Clendenning [00:42:20]:
Perfect. And if anybody comes through and mentions CCMM, carpet cleaner marketing master CCMM, they get what? What was that? We’re We’re

Rachel Southgate [00:42:29]:
gonna do 1 month free. So just

John Clendenning [00:42:31]:
say that That’s amazing. So Yeah. Try it out. See if you like it or not like it. It’s Rachel’s job to make you love it, which you will. I wouldn’t have known her for 20 years and been doing this if it wasn’t. But yeah.

Rachel Southgate [00:42:41]:
Yeah. No. Just meet our team. Just see what we’re about. Just hear us on the phones. Yeah. I think you’ll be impressed and go from there.

John Clendenning [00:42:50]:
Yeah. And it’s it allows you to then focus on the marketing. Again, whether you’re a client of ours or just somebody who’s listening to the podcast, learning about that, you know, you’re the marketer of cleaning services first. This is a resource. We’re a resource. Yeah. You wanna be out there in the marketplace doing your job. You go back 20 years ago.

John Clendenning [00:43:07]:
Howard Partridge talked about this. Joe Polish. I mean, Clean Facts Magazine, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber in the E Myth. All of these things are are pieces of knowledge you should know as a carpet cleaner, as a cleaning business owner, because those are those are the the way to grow a business. Rachel and the call center is a service that can help you over a hump and prevent you from even needing to try and build out that department. Maybe if you’re 20 trucks on the road and you need 4 or 5 people on your own, maybe that makes sense.

Rachel Southgate [00:43:36]:
Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:43:36]:
But if you’re the guy on the road or 1 or 2 or 3 trucks on the road, you can completely hand this off for a fraction of what you’d cost to pay a full time employee to sit in the office and and plus, you know, vacation pays and and all of that kind of stuff. Let Rachel worry about all that and pay her team, all of that kind of stuff. They’re just billing you per booking. And I mean, if your average job is $400 and, you know, you’re paying a fraction a fraction of that just to book a book a job, just build it in your pricing. You know, there’s not there’s nothing hard about upping your pricing by 10%. Cover this for free. Nobody will notice. Like, literally, upping your price by 10%, if you’re a quality company is something you should probably do every year or 2 anyways.

John Clendenning [00:44:17]:
You constantly increase the value to the customer and then increase your pricing, and target the more sophisticated client, and you just make more profit and better clients. So you can build all of this right into your current pricing right now anyways. So

Rachel Southgate [00:44:30]:
Yeah. No. You sure can.

John Clendenning [00:44:32]:
Awesome. Well, I appreciate having you on. As I said, you Yeah. Known you for 20 years. You’re a wealth of knowledge. You you know this stuff inside out and backwards. Hope everybody’s had a, you know, a a really good sense of this part of their business and also what you guys do. Go to the call studio.com or look them up on Instagram or give them a phone call.

John Clendenning [00:44:51]:
That’s the same phone number that’s been around for 20 years. I thought it was funny actually that I’ve gone, I could rattle that

Rachel Southgate [00:44:55]:
phone number

John Clendenning [00:44:56]:
off my head, too. Anyways, I appreciate you jumping on, Rachel. And hopefully we get some people reaching out to you and really understanding that they can literally double their business by having better communications and phone support and customer lead support than just trying to wing it on your own.

Rachel Southgate [00:45:14]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And thank you. This has been great.

John Clendenning [00:45:17]:
Take care, everybody.