Communicating With Customers

Partnering relationships must be formed. They certainly do not happen on their own. However, the evolved much more easily if the cleaning contractor has a goal of partnering with clients from the start.

Usually, to build such a relationship with a customer, we need to communicate.

“The art of communication is the language of leadership,” says James Humes, author, and former presidential speech writer.

Your first job with a new client is to listen, listen, listen. And after you listen, your next job is to ask questions about all that you have just heard. This is how you learn about your new customer, their expectations, needs, and challenges; the type of business they have; their industry; the company culture; the kind of visitors they have to the facility, etc. The more you hear and understand, what will eventually evolve is that you speak their language and see things from their perspective.

One of the best ways to foster the communication process is always to be accessible. This will help promote a more comfortable relationship between you and the customer and build the trust that is so needed at this stage of the evolving partnership.

Ron Segura is founder and president of Segura & Associates, an international janitorial consulting company based in the U.S. He has over 45 years of experience in all segments of the cleaning industry with ten of those years spent overseeing the cleaning of over 4.5 million square feet for The Walt Disney Company. Ron can be contacted through his company website at www.seguraassociates.com.