2024 was a rough year for a lot of restoration companies, given a pretty significant dip in insurance claim volume. For many restorers, though, this was the push they needed to finally go hard after commercial business.
However, what you quickly learn is that selling and servicing commercial clients is a different game than serving Mr. and Mrs. Jones. It truly requires a different mindset about the business.
In particular, it requires that we shift our thinking about customer experience. In this article, I’m going to attempt to lay out the five critical components of a strong customer experience culture. If you and your team adopt these fundamentals into your business, you can expect to see a substantial lift in your team’s morale, the quality of experience your clients receive, and the average number of jobs you receive from your commercial clients and referral partners.
Truly remarkable customer experience always moves the needle in the service industry. In fact, it may be the only thing that actually matters anymore when you get right down to it.
People, Process, and Systems
Well, of course, right.
But I’m not going to take you into the weeds of your mitigation process flow or your onboarding checklist for new employees. Instead, I want to focus in on what we’re actually selling.
When we consult with companies, one of the exercises we do early in the relationship is the Pain/Solution Table exercise.
It’s a simple activity done with the whole leadership team and ideally any salespeople you have.
First, as a group, you brainstorm all the big and small pain points and irritations that come up while delivering restoration services. And it’s important to consider all the various customers we have—Mr. and Mrs. Jones, adjusters, referral partners, chief engineers, plant managers, property managers, etc.
An example that I heard countless times in the field from property managers is, “We never know what the heck is going on! We’re always having to chase down our project manager for an update we can share with our owner-client.”
This is a clear example of poor “Communication Frequency”, which may be the most common pain point clients experience in our industry. But of course, there are many, many more irritating, frustrating, and aggravating things that folks experience when working with our industry. Write them all in the left-hand column.
Then, on the right side, carefully talk through each pain point one by one and identify a system, process, or person in your business that addresses or neutralizes that pain point.
Inevitably, you’ll find some of the pain points you identify don’t currently have a solution in your business. And therein lies the strategic value of this exercise. It’s an opportunity for you to strategize as a team and close those gaps.
I put this first in the article because you can’t take customer experience seriously in your business if you never sit down as a team and think about where the experience goes wrong for the customer. A customer experience culture is one where we proactively create experiences, vs reactively save said experiences.
Bonus note: Once you have that list on the right, those are the things your sales team is actually selling in the field. Not how big of a fleet you have, how many locations you have, or how many triple masters are on the team or your fancy contents cleaning facility you like to brag about.
Full Chain Thinking
Most of the time, when we think about customer experience or customer service, we think of it as a transaction. Once we collect that signed COS, get paid, or receive a Google review, we’re done.
But the reality, especially when it comes to commercial work, is that our customers’ experience with us is constantly evolving. The last social media post they saw from us, seeing our (dirty?) trucks driving on the road, a comment from another property manager about their experience with us, seeing one of our employees in uniform out in the community—those are all part of our customers’ experience with our brand.
So, we have to take a more strategic and infinite view of the experience we’re creating for our clients.
Another aspect of this is taking into account all the administrative elements of our service delivery. It isn’t just the experience with their sales rep and then their project manager and team. What about their conversations with the job file coordinator or your AR specialist? Every interaction that your team has with the client matters.
Mantras and Rallying Cries
Whenever you’re trying to lead change or drive a particular mindset or set of behaviors in your company, it’s helpful to have simple words, phrases, and acronyms that convey important principles or point to critical actions or attitudes.
Here are a few that Brandon and I have adopted over the years and now teach our consulting clients.
The 4 P’s:
- Protect the Referral Source
- Protect the Client
- Protect the Team/ Our Brand
- Protect the Process
This was something our team came up with early on to try and address the chaotic nature of our business.
When an employee is faced with a situation or circumstance in the field where they’re not quite sure what to do, the 4P’s is a very simple framework to help decide the next right action.
And it’s probably obvious to most of you reading this but why is “Protect the Referral Source” at the top?
Well, that’s because sometimes we end up with a truly difficult client that was referred to us. And while we may not be able to satisfy them fully, if we communicate well and keep our referral partner in the loop, we can still make the referral partner happy with the service we delivered.
(They most likely already knew they were sending us a tough customer.)
Another mantra we adopted early on with our team is “Radar On, Antennae Up”. We stole this from Ritz-Carlton, perhaps the most iconic brand in hospitality.
Radar On refers to spatial awareness. Who’s currently in the room, in the house, in the building right now? And how might I need to modulate my behavior, appearance, or language to ensure a positive customer experience? (Or protect the Ps)
Antennae Up refers to sending and receiving communication. In Ritz-Carlton jargon it’s referring to listening to both the spoken and unspoken needs and desires of guests. And more than just focusing on verbal communication, tapping into all the senses, watching for body language, tone of voice, etc.
And so “Radar On, Antennae Up” was a near constant phrase in our business, across the team. It communicates a ton in just four words.
These are just a couple of examples. Give the topic some time at your next leadership team meeting or all company meeting and see if you can identify other power phrases or rallying cries that summarize or point to really important values or behaviors in your business.
Money
This is one of the most powerful parts of Ritz-Carlton’s culture, and we bought into it full stop.
At Ritz-Carlton, every single employee in the company, whether it’s the general manager at a hotel or a day porter sweeping the lobby, is authorized to spend on behalf of the company up to $2,000 per guest, per stay, with zero prior approval.
And it’s not just for rescuing a bad customer experience. No, in fact, it’s more commonly to enhance a guest’s stay or increase their delight. And it’s resulted in hundreds of published guest stories online.
Well, we decided to implement this in our restoration company. We issued company credit cards to every single full-time employee on the team.
Now, as you might imagine, we didn’t give everyone a $2000 limit. We put a $250 limit on the cards. We wanted to make sure the team actually had the financial resources to act when they saw an opportunity to delight our customers.
It was a powerful move for our team culture. Many of our employees had never, ever been trusted with something like that before. In fact, many were hesitant to use what we called the “Ritz cards”, out of fear that they would spend money on the wrong thing, or spend too much, etc.
It created a lot of opportunities for coaching and development, but over time, some pretty inspiring stories emerged. Many, many happy tears were cried by customers who felt deeply touched by creative and thoughtful experiences that the team delivered.
One example that still chokes me up sometimes when I tell it:
Back in the day, Brandon was handling a big fire job. We were down a PM, so he had stepped in to run it. Major fire loss, and in the process of putting out the fire, the fire department had driven all over the client’s backyard. And unfortunately, their backyard was their pride and joy, and Mrs. Jones’ primary hobby. It had been a pristine Japanese-style garden.
When Brandon went to their home to review the process and discuss the scope, they met in the backyard, and it was obvious to him that she was devastated.
So, before meeting the Joneses at their hotel later that week, Brandon stopped by a local garden store to pick up a garden-related gift for Mrs. Jones.
They had an entire wall in the store dedicated to Bonzai trees and the special little tools for cultivating them. The perfect gift for someone missing their garden and struggling to keep their mind off the devastation at their home!
When Mrs. Jones opened the hotel room door, she saw Brandon holding the Bonzai tree in front of him and immediately burst into tears.
We had so many fun stories like this happen over the years, but if we hadn’t empowered them with the Ritz cards, many of those experiences wouldn’t have happened.
Memorials and Celebrations
One of the first things that many leaders learn as they step into higher levels of influence and responsibility is how many times they have to repeat themselves or repeat important messages before they’re actually heard or the principles or behaviors are actually adopted.
I’ve heard some leadership gurus say things must be said seven times before they’re actually received, and others say it’s seventy-seven! The point being, any time we’re trying to create change in our company, we have to promote the change over and over again before it finally spreads across the team and becomes the new normal.
There are two primary ways I recommend you celebrate and memorialize customer experience wins in your business-
- Use Slack, Google Chat, GroupMe, or even a group iMessage to share “Ritzs”, as we called them, or when a team member did something thoughtful for a client. Encourage employees to “brag” on the chat, in the moment, on the same day. This is vital for two reasons: one, it allows others to learn from the creative things that others are doing for clients, and it highlights the “winners” on the team. Essentially, positive peer pressure.
- Give out an award for the most creative “Ritzs” at your all-company meeting, and have the individual tell the story of the remarkable experience they created. Instead of giving a cash or gift card reward, have a trophy, coin, or patch made. Make it a point of pride, not a cash incentive.
Wrapping It Up
Creating a customer experience culture isn’t about a new initiative, a temporary campaign, or a quick training. It’s about rewiring how your organization thinks, communicates, and behaves—from the field tech on a mold job to the controller managing AR. The five building blocks I’ve laid out—People, Process and Systems, Full-Chain Thinking, Mantras and Rallying Cries, Money, and Memorials and Celebrations—are not silver bullets. But when stacked together intentionally, they form the foundation of a truly differentiated business.
And let’s be honest—restoration is hard work. But so is commercial property management, facilities operations, and asset protection. When your company becomes known not just for what you do, but how you make people feel, you stop having to chase work, because your clients and prospects want what you have to offer.
If you commit to these principles—and keep telling the stories, celebrating the wins, and closing the gaps—you won’t just grow your book of business. You’ll build a brand that people remember, trust, and talk about.
Let’s raise the bar. Not just for the customer, but for ourselves, too.
Chris Nordyke
Chris Nordyke is the co-Founder and President of Floodlight Consulting Group and Floodlight Sales Partners. Chris speaks throughout the year at industry events, and conducts live workshops focused on commercial sales and ops, customer experience strategy and building enterprise value. He is also the co-Host of the Head Heart & Boots podcast, a popular restoration industry show. For more information on Floodlight’s fractional sales management solution, visit https://www.floodlightgrp.com/
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