Your staff said WHAT to your client! | 145

What your electrical staff are saying when your back is turned, and the cameras watching you that you can't see. A painter on my own camera doing something he shouldn't. 

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Transcript

Your work doesn't speak for itself. Your mouth does. And your staff's mouths as well.

Welcome to Simplified Sparky Marketing. A few experiences I've had over the years, and stuff that I hope can prevent your electrical business from making the same stuff ups, and this may even be occurring in your electrical business today.

To start with, I want to speak about the language that is used by you to your clients, and from your staff members to your clients. Because you have to remember that your staff members are flying your flag. So when your back is turned, how are your staff members speaking to your clients?

An example of this was a few years ago, I was back in Ireland. I'd literally just hired this guy, and it was about three weeks into his employment that I had to set him off on his own. Now mind you, I had a horribly run business at the time. I was part of a coaching system, and the thing they fixated on, and they still do, is hire staff, hire staff, hire staff. So it was hire staff, but they didn't give you the foundations, they didn't give you a playbook, they didn't give you the onboarding system. Nothing. It was just hire staff and then we'll figure it out.

So that's exactly what I did. I hired staff because I had a good inkling about this person, which allegedly was the best way to hire staff. Hired this guy on attitude, and he told me he was a good electrician.

So anyway, he was on a job. The job was replacing a switchboard enclosure and doing another few bits in the house. When it came to the switchboard, he did the switchboard, but he spotted that the earth, to be fair to him, wasn't compliant. It wasn't to standard. I think it was like a 4 mil or something, or maybe it was an old copper wire wrapped around a pipe.

So what had happened was he relayed this to the client. He said, "Look, we're going to have to install a new earth." And the exact words he said to me that he relayed to the client were, "We're gonna have to install a new earth here. I don't know how much it costs because the boss is away, but I'm sure he won't sting you too hard."

When I heard that, I shivered. Because for the client, a sting is something a bee does. A sting is something a wasp does. A mosquito. That hurts.

The language he used there could have been approached a lot differently. It's something that goes under the radar. And what I would suggest to you, whether you're thinking of hiring an apprentice or you've currently got staff, I think a meeting is needed. When they're onboarded, you relay to them, "This is how you should speak to clients." As I said, these are the guys flying your flag for your electrical business. If they use language like that, that can make the client feel uncomfortable, it's not a good look for your company.

Something I speak about a lot is the five star step. You take the initial phone call or the email enquiry, and that very first interaction with the client is gonna tick off the first star of the review. Then it moves along as you achieve those five stars on the job. Now, if you're on the job, you might have got to three stars with my system. You might be on the fourth and you're at the finish line, and then you say something like, "Sting you." That could just eradicate your chance of getting a review.

It's not until your back is turned that this kind of stuff is gonna happen as well. One of my clients, I upgraded their switchboard and meter box a few years ago. She was getting her hot water system upgraded. She reached out to me and said, "Can you install the circuit?" I'd booked in to do the circuit, and she said, "Hang on, don't worry about it. The plumber that's installing the hot water system, he's got a mate that's an electrician. He's going to install it."

Now on a side note to this, it was bizarre. When I upgraded the switchboard, the existing hot water system, which was a feed into the roof, was perfectly fine. It was a 2.5, 20 amp circuit, already on an RCBO. He actually went and replaced it with a circuit breaker for some weird, bizarre reason, and didn't install an isolator.

While that plumber and electrician were on site, they were yapping. There was techno tunes pumping, and it made the client feel extremely uncomfortable. She's quite a timid client. She's a bit peculiar, but a lovely person.

Once the job was done she called me up. She was like, "Alan, I don't trust their work. Can you please come and check out this system?" So I did. I was like, "I don't know why the hell he's removed that off an RCD and onto a circuit breaker." I thought maybe the element was tripping from the get go for some weird reason, and he's put it on that. So I did an IR test. I tested everything. Everything worked. I put a new RCBO back into the switchboard, which I had to charge her for, because he had whipped the other RCBO.

I asked her, "What went wrong? Why did you feel you needed to get me back?" She was like, "They were loud. They were obnoxious. They were pumping techno music." She just didn't feel comfortable with them in her home.

It's just these little things that you think and presume common sense is there with your staff, but you really have to sit them down and say, "Look, this is how we operate. This is how we treat our clients when we go to their home." Because at the end of the day, you're inside in their home. It's their safe space. If you make them feel uncomfortable, or your staff make them feel uncomfortable in their home, it's not gonna be a good experience. It's not gonna lead to referrals. It's not gonna lead to reviews. It's not gonna lead to further work. If anything, it's just gonna spin a bad reputation. Because you can do the best work out there, but if you make that client feel uncomfortable in their home, or you use language like stinging, it's not gonna be a good experience.

Another rule when it comes to customer experience is the presumption that you're always being watched. I think it's vital, it is paramount, that either on onboarding or in a toolbox talk tomorrow morning with your staff members, you advise them that they are consistently being watched. In garages, around the perimeter of the house, inside the house, on the Ring doorbell. Conversations are picked up. You're seen on the cameras. It should be presumed that even if they think there's not a camera in the house, or they can't see any plain sight of a camera, you don't know the client. You don't know that that baby monitor sitting on the shelf, tucked behind something else, is looking at you.

I have fucking seen this firsthand. I was doing a job in Darlinghurst many years ago, and there was a baby monitor pointing right into the kitchen we were renovating with a builder. He was about to bag out the client, and I stopped him in his tracks. I brought him outside and I let him know. He never seen that camera, and that could have been very damaging to their relationship and to getting paid.

I even caught a painter pissing on my cameras. I caught him pissing because the camera picked up the motion, and he was taking a sneaky piss out the side. Imagine if that was your staff member, and I was a shithead, and I flagged that with you. How bad that would look for you.

I did an EV charger install in a garage the other day, and I looked around when the job was almost done. I have it subconsciously that I most likely am being watched in any case. But sure as shit, when I was packing up, I looked in the corner and I seen there was a Google Nest camera just rested and plugged in on the shelf, pointing directly at where the charger was being installed. It wasn't like it was pointed at the door to see whoever was coming in. It was as if it was positioned that while I was doing the install, I could be watched doing it. Which is weird.

We're now in 2026 and things are getting weirder. There's more cameras everywhere. Everything's being watched. Everything's being monitored.

There's so many different stories I've heard over the years. Of a plumber getting caught on a Ring camera bagging out the client to their workmate before they answer the door, not realising that they're listening to every single word they say. I've heard of people speaking about the client badly once they hear a door shut and they presume they're gone out. Next thing they're hearing footprints coming up the hallway.

It is going to be very detrimental to your business. So have that meeting this week. Or change your policies. Or change your onboarding process so you do advise them of this. It's just gonna make for a better customer experience on their end. It keeps the guard up with you and your staff, and it's gonna be an all round better experience for your company. Which leads to more work, more reviews, more referrals.

I'll catch you next week.