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Small Business Success Through Customer Service Excellence

• American Gutter Monkeys, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Exceptional customer service isn’t just a bonus—it’s the foundation of a thriving small business. In this episode of Monkey Business Radio, we dive into what makes great customer service stand out, why so many businesses fall short, and how simply showing up on time and doing what you say you’ll do can feel like an industry “innovation” in today’s world.

We’re joined by Brian Lovejoy, owner of Lovejoy Carpet Care, who shares his firsthand experience building a business where exceptional service isn’t just a goal—it’s the standard. Alongside hosts Chris Collins and Dennis Siggins of American Gutter Monkeys, we explore how home service businesses can rise above today’s low customer expectations by committing to reliability, professionalism, and follow-through.

If you’re a small business owner, franchisee, or aspiring entrepreneur, this episode is packed with insights on how to turn customer service into your competitive edge. Tune in to learn why the little things—like answering the phone and showing up—make all the difference in customer loyalty and business success.

Chris:

Every once in a while someone comes along, shocks the establishment with a new innovation and a tired industry From the movie Moneyball. Here's how Boston Red Sox owner John Henry put it.

Dennis:

Really, what it's threatening is their livelihoods, their jobs. It's threatening the way they do things and every time that happens whether it's the government, a way of doing business, or whatever the people who are holding the reins they have their hands on the switch. They go batshit crazy. Hello.

Chris:

I'm Chris Collins, your host. In this podcast. We dive into stories of innovation, resilience and what it takes to shake up an industry. Joining me is my co-host and resident small business expert, dennis Siggins, or, as he's known on the Cape and Islands, bobby Downspout. Dennis, along with his college roommate, andy Brennan, founded the Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys and transformed the humble task of gutter cleaning into a thriving, multi-million dollar business that redefined the game. Together, we'll uncover the strategies, lessons and inspirations behind building and growing a successful business. So, whether you're here for business insights, inspiration or just a great story, you're in the right place. Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, relax and welcome to Monkey Business Radio.

Chris:

Hello everyone, welcome to Episode 4 of Monkey Business Radio. Monkeying around with customer service. I'm your host, chris Collins, and, as always, I'm joined with Dennis Siggins of the Cape Cod Guider Monkeys. Hello Dennis, how you doing, chris? How are you today? Not too bad, not too bad Good. We've got a special guest tonight. We're really excited here today because we have Brian Lovejoy, owner of Lovejoy Carpet Care. Over 38 years of experience in carpet, rug, upholstery cleaning, brian's built a business known for exceptional customer service and he's here tonight to share some insights on how service drives customer loyalty and business growth.

Chris:

So welcome to the show, brian.

Brian:

Thanks, chris, great to be here.

Chris:

Yeah, it's good to see you Made it through a little bit of snow this morning and yeah, we're excited to have our first guest first guest on the episode.

Dennis:

Yep absolutely.

Chris:

So why don't we start off with? I'm curious how you guys ended up on a podcast in Mashpee Massachusetts.

Chris:

After all these years, after all these years, what the?

Chris:

hell happened.

Dennis:

I don't know.

Dennis:

Brian, where do we start? Well, the beginning would be in Marlborough, right it?

Dennis:

was

Brian:

Yep would be in.

Brian:

Marlborough right,

Dennis:

it was yeah, you guys both at one time had a cleaning business.

Chris:

You owned a cleaning business, didn't you, dennis Babs?

Dennis:

and I probably were married but just about to be married maybe and Brian answered an ad and he came to work for our company. We had just started carpet and upholstery cleaning business back in the early 1980s and Brian was our first employee.

Chris:

Oh, cool, cool. So after all these years, you're still in the business of carpet cleaning.

Dennis:

We actually still get. Along.

Dennis:

Actually yeah, how long have I known you, god, since what? Freshman year in high school?

Chris:

Freshman year in high school, yeah.

Chris:

Yeah, it's been a while.

Chris:

Been a few years.

Chris:

Yeah, so longer than I care to care to think about some nights. So, brian, I really we hit it off.

Dennis:

I took a detour in the mid 80s, got out of the business and my wife and I got into a different business at the time and Brian just stayed the course in the carpet, upholstery and flooring business. He could probably give you more insight on that business.

Brian:

He could probably give you more insight on that. Yeah, I just um figured starting my own little company to to get by and try to grow be the best course.

Chris:

And 38, 40 years later, here we are you want to share a little bit about uh, about your company no, no, no, just kidding how big that's funny. I'm sorry, that's good so yeah, how big are you guys?

Brian:

We're a small company. It's my son and I and our excellent employee Paul. We run two trucks. We have a rug cleaning shop, which is a lot of fun just to do orientals and a lot of wool rugs and a few silk rugs too, which are always an adventure. But yeah, so that's where we're at now. We're growing a little bit and looking at a third truck and maybe an employee or two this year and keep moving on.

Chris:

Great, great, all right. Well, let's dive in to tonight's topic customer service. So I'd love to hear what you think about customer service, how you kind of define it inside your own business. You know you've got different businesses now gutters and carpet cleaning but from our conversations it sounds like you're both sort of on the same page when it comes to what it takes to deliver, you know, really truly great customer service. It comes to what it takes to deliver really truly great customer service.

Dennis:

Chris, customer service has a lot of meanings for different businesses and different people. I've dabbled in the contracting business, the food service business, the exercise business. I've owned companies over the years in many different businesses. But in my world right now we are in the gutter cleaning, gutter repairs, maintenance and gutter installation home service business. So I guess tonight's topic really would be customer service in the home service industry. I think you would probably qualify yourself as the same Brian, right, Exactly, we're not really contractors.

Dennis:

Rarely, if ever, do me and or my company ever do a job that takes more than a couple hours. Gutter cleaning maybe take an hour or two. Gutter installs can take anywhere from an hour to maybe six or eight hours. But we're not contractors per se. I look at us as a home service-based company per se. I look at us as a home service-based company. Another lifelong friend of mine, somebody I've known since my teenage years, Andy Brennan. He and I started the Gutter Monkeys 10 years ago, 10 and a half years ago, and at the very beginning we kind of agreed on this premise If we answer the phones, show up on time, do a good job, charge a fair price, then that's it. We'll be rock stars, Right, and it's worked out well, and that's what customer service is.

Chris:

Yeah.

Dennis:

You know, it's the support that you offer your customers through a business relationship.

Chris:

That's customer service 73% of customers say that exceptional customer service earns their loyalty. Not regular, you know, ordinary customer service.

Brian:

Yeah, it's relative, though I think you know exceptional service is different to everybody. I think, like Dennis was saying, unfortunately today, doing what you say you're going to do, showing up on time, then a lot of people think that's exceptional. I mean, we show up for estimates and people think that's exceptional.

Dennis:

Exceptional service is not our goal, it's our standard way of doing business, and if you can establish that with your office staff, your field team and everybody in between, then exceptional service becomes the norm and it doesn't seem exceptional anymore. Under-promise, over-deliver.

Brian:

Exactly.

Dennis:

So, Chris, like I say back in the beginning, what Andy and I decided and this is in 2014, we were going to use today's technology and, at the same time, a lot of old school strategies. And, at the same time, a lot of old school strategies like picking up the phone, you know, returning calls as soon as you possibly can Not tomorrow, not the next day. I mean, we get thanked every day for picking up the phone, having a conversation and scheduling an appointment. People just thank us for that.

Brian:

And we haven't even got there yet and done the work.

Dennis:

So unusual, I guess people now have decided that that's extraordinary customer service. It's a different model, because a lot of the younger kids have grown up with cell phones and technology, and none of us here did so. If you're 35 years old and you're a skilled business owner, you may be able to do a lot of the stuff that we do in the office. You can do that on your cell phone, but there are some pieces to the puzzle that can't be replaced via a cell phone, and so that's where this sort of old school model has a leg up is. You know, I would call it the old school office model, where there's always somebody at the phone during normal business hours and addressing the needs of the person who's calling the customer.

Chris:

This seems to be a reoccurring theme. This old school is innovation nowadays. You know, because people have gotten away from it, that it's being viewed as innovative. You know, having a having a landline is an innovative idea.

Dennis:

It's different. Sometimes the young kids they'll kid me about. You know my lack of skill in the technology world, but I work with young business owners all the time and one of the comparisons I make is that, yeah, I'm a little hesitant to go all in on all of today's technology, but you, the 30-year-old upstart business owner, is scared to death of a landline and a desktop computer. And there's the gap. There's the gap right there. Hey, chris, before we go, let me just. I was reading an article the other day and it was in Zendesk, and this popped up and because we were prepping for a customer service podcast, I'll throw this out Bad customer service. Here is what a Zendesk author cited as the top five things that are identified as bad customer service A lack of empathy, just like we don't care. Customers can't reach you, meaning they can't get in touch with you.

Chris:

Yeah, that drives me crazy.

Dennis:

Poor automated phone systems, long wait times and being transferred too many times. Now, this is just one article that I happen to read, but if you look at those, you know four out of the five have to do with communication. Right, exactly, communication's huge yeah.

Chris:

Yeah, there's a Zappos story. I don't know if you heard it. Zappos always wanted their customers to be very well received when they're being talked to on the phone, so they encourage their employees to talk to them. Take as much time as you need. They have one instance here that they talk about. It's a really interesting story where they spent 10 hours on the phone with a customer. So they just sat there because the customer just was interacting constant, constantly. The employee had been told you know, you need to interact with the customer and stay with them, stay with them. So it was a 10-hour phone call that they had with the guys at Zappos.

Brian:

Very cool. I like it. Well, yeah, I've had an experience like that and a customer called me about a stock rug she had and she had all these issues with it Nothing that I could fix. Fix. Her problem was with the company, the manufacturer, and she wanted me to come out take a look at it and want to know how much I would charge. And I just told I just want to see it now, but it sounds very interesting, so there'd be no charge. So you know, I ran up there and it it was quite educational. It just came to mind. But yeah, it's just, people are funny and listening is apparently an art these days and it's really not that difficult.

Chris:

She probably appreciated you being there and talking about the rug.

Brian:

So I sold some rug protector while I was there. That was all good. There you go all right.

Chris:

So it's more than answering phones. I guess customer service is kind of a bridge between your marketing turning a first-time caller into a loyal repeat customer marketing is where it all begins yeah, we did a whole show last week, dennis on on marketing was it last week? Yeah, yeah, you know it's a blur now, huh, already Time flies. Five shows in and you're already oh.

Dennis:

Marketing is expensive only if it doesn't make the phone ring number one. But when you begin a marketing program, you know you choose your target market. You choose your target market. If my target market is 60 to 80-year-old ladies, I have to gear my customer service toward then pass it through to you and then you, the owner of the company, get back to them through an email or a text or in some fashion like that. 60 to 80 year old women want you to pick up the phone, they want to have a chat with you, they want you to problem solve.

Dennis:

You know I have a problem with my gutters, I have a problem with my rugs, and your office staff member will then address those needs and come up with a solution. And here's a solution I'm going to send somebody out and we are going to do A, b, c and D and the number one goal there is to ease the customer's mind about what he or she is going through. That's your target market. If you're in the 50 or 60 to 80 year old range, if your target market is 24 to 32 year old women, that may not be the best method. So when it comes to marketing, identifying your target market and attracting the people from that target market comes first, and then you have to design your customer service process accordingly. Make sense.

Chris:

Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I saw an interesting quote the other day. It was about Ritz-Carlton how they did their customer service and their tagline for years and years was always ladies and gentlemen, serviced by ladies and gentlemen. So they knew exactly who they were looking for and they knew exactly who in their customer minds, who was answering the phone All right, brian.

Dennis:

What's your target market Age? I mean Everything. Okay, do ladies do most of the scheduling Age brackets? What are we looking at?

Brian:

Yeah, we're looking at, our target market is probably 35 to 55-year-old women, married homeowners, couple, kids, dogs.

Dennis:

Couple of dogs. Couple of dogs, there you go.

Brian:

The more dogs everybody wins, the more dogs the better. Yeah, that's right, and so, yeah, that's it. Then you throw in an income level there as well, of course, the demographics of kids and dogs. That's generally a higher income level, as it is. Sure yeah.

Chris:

How about the rental market now? You've got a lot of Airbnbs and stuff that need to be cleaned a lot. I know we have one up in New Hampshire and we have a carpet cleaner guy on speed dial up there.

Brian:

No, we don't, Well, not in our service area.

Chris:

That's probably true. It's probably very service area specific.

Brian:

There is, I think, one lady who calls us and I don't know if it's Airbnb or just like she gets a lot of bad tenants.

Dennis:

I don't know, what it?

Brian:

is because they're out quickly. But so, yeah, not so much Airbnb. That would be interesting, but no, basically, we do have some apartment owners who always call us with the turnover. We do have some apartment owners who always call us with the turnover, but mainly homeowners, condo owners and pets Everybody get a pet, go get a dog.

Dennis:

Who does?

Chris:

your carpets up north, it's Ed Martin.

Dennis:

You know him well.

Chris:

He just sold a business.

Dennis:

I knew his dad. Oh wow, Know Ed yeah, Sure Hi Ed if you're listening. Great.

Chris:

Yeah, I know I've known ed martin for years he's on special and I tell you the exceptional customer service I mean he's a good egg. Yeah, he is airbnbs, you know you only have. You know your turnaround time is very small. Yeah, and we call him on a on speed dial, say, hey, you know wine glass, you know. Can you help us, and why?

Dennis:

is that? What's that? Why do you call him and why is?

Chris:

that, what's that?

Dennis:

Why do you call him?

Chris:

Exceptional customer service.

Dennis:

Customer service. That's what it comes down to, because he shows up.

Chris:

And he shows up.

Dennis:

Ed Martin.

Chris:

That's a long drive, wow, littleton to Bretton Woods. You know, yeah, it's a little bit of a drive. Yeah, yeah, for him to do it. There's actually one set, so he's a great guy.

Chris:

Yeah, we really appreciate it. My wife handles all that, but it's a full-time job

Dennis:

After marketing. In my opinion, setting up the work, that initial email, that initial phone call, that initial contact, that's your one opportunity to make a first impression right there. So I work with my office staff. We had a little five-minute meeting this morning. Probably two mornings a week I'll call all the office staff in because I see or hear or I notice a little detail, just the tiniest little thing. And today I brought them all in because I was doing an audit of all the not a legitimate audit, but an audit of all the scheduling from right now, december, which yesterday, december 4th to the end of the month, and I just found little inconsistencies in the schedule. And I do this about once or twice a week. I bring the staff in. I say, hey, here's what I'm seeing, here's what showed up, let's take a look at this. And we have a quick five-minute meeting and that's it.

Dennis:

But really what it comes down to is everyone in the office has to answer the phone properly or, if we're just swamped, return that phone call that we couldn't get two minutes ago, that went to voicemail. Make sure everybody's well-informed. This is what we do, how we do it, where and when we do it. Assessing the customer's need and then treating them fairly. That's the name of the game. And then treating them fairly. That's the name of the game. I look at it as we're problem solvers. We're not salespeople. I'm not picking the phone up and calling you and trying to cold call you. We're problem solvers.

Dennis:

So when that phone rings, let's say it's me that answers the phone. I got to listen. Does this person want to schedule a routine once a year gutter cleaning? Or does this person need a quote on new gutters? Or is this person in panic mode because it just rained heavily and their basement flooded? So each one of those they have a need I want to say each one of those needs quality. A little bit of a problem. And what can I do?

Dennis:

Well, the guy that needs a quote, I want to get him. If he wants a quote for new gutters, I want to get him on the schedule in the next two to three days. I don't want him to wait a week. So we get somebody out there either tomorrow or the next day or, at the very latest latest, the day after that. The person that's a repeat customer. They don't have really a problem. They just want to schedule their fall gutter cleaning and they're usually calling in August to set it up for November. But then you get the person who's panicking because we don't know him or her. Maybe we haven't cleaned their gutters ever, but it just rained really heavy and their basement flooded. We got to get to them real fast. We're not scheduling them for three months out. She has a problem, so we are going to assess the need, give her a rough price because we haven't seen it, and then we're going to have somebody there in less than 48 hours.

Chris:

You'll have a customer forever, fix that. So yeah, customer service.

Dennis:

That's problem. Yeah, customer service, that's what it comes down to.

Chris:

So let's get back to just answering the phone. You pick up the phone. Communication is huge. At some point you have to pick up the phone, answer the phone call, Train your office staff.

Dennis:

You want to be prompt, efficient, knowledgeable, Present solutions. In my opinion, Presenting solutions One of the things we do. We have a good variety in my office. I've installed a few miles of gutters in my life. I've also done a few thousand roofs in my life.

Dennis:

If there's a technical question about gutters or leaking or why is water getting in the basement, a lot of times my office staff she'll walk it over to me and say, hey, can you handle this one? It's a technical question. It's good if we have somebody like myself or Andy or Chuck, you know, in the office that can answer that question. There's other times that someone will call and they'll have a question that I could probably figure it out. But I know that Lauren or Molly or somebody in the office spoke to this person two days ago. Let me transfer you over to Molly. You talk to her two days ago, she'll handle it and then I don't have to go through the backstory again, and so I like to have a variety of people in the. In the end, it's all about handling the customer's problem, taking care of them, so that in that three or four minute phone call you've got them on the schedule to complete the solution to what they're going through.

Chris:

Being here at the Gutter Monkeys I've kind of learned your office staff sort of how they work and kind of work together, coordinate together. Brian, I went through your website today and I went through your online thing together. Brian, I went through your website today and I went through your online thing.

Chris:

I was really impressed with it your whole ability to select your different services and schedule and do the whole thing, which is pretty interesting. And I kind of went around to look at some other competitors I guess your competitors in the area and you don't see that at all. So that seems like a real innovation on your part on your website. How does that work for you? It?

Brian:

works very well on most times there's a little hiccup in overbooking and double booking, but that's easy enough to fix when you get to them right away. Talk to the client right away and schedule up more time that we can get there, more time that we can get there. Yeah, so it's been very interesting. You don't have to sell much. They overbuy almost every time. You know they pick the everything package and I hope this doesn't go out to any prospective clients. I hope it does.

Brian:

I hope it does because it's great. There's roads of sales. It's a great service. I love it does. I hope it does because it's great.

Chris:

It's a great service. I love it. I mean for carpet cleaning. You know, having a place up in New Hampshire, I mean it would be a great way for us to schedule it, because we have to be there at a certain time.

Brian:

You know, we can't you know, because we'll be up there for a certain period of time.

Chris:

So for our market, you know, for me as a customer that would be a really great to have, and we're finding a lot of repeat clients are now just doing that. Yeah, now they're familiar with it, so they're comfortable with it.

Dennis:

Brian, what do you view the function of your website? What is the function of your website in your company? Kind of a weird question, but what is it?

Brian:

Yeah, I think it's to inform of our presence in our services because, like most cleaning companies, we have multiple services and there's a lot of confusion, especially about rugs. But anyways, to answer the question, I think it's to inform of our presence, our services and of our products that they can get from us.

Chris:

Yeah, I was impressed, actually, with one in particular. It was grout cleaning, so you clean grout, which is another problem we have up in New Hampshire. I keep going back to New Hampshire but if I hadn't been on your online service, I would have no idea that you would have had that service. I wouldn't have ever thought to order it from you.

Brian:

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because that is one service that is big online booking with us.

Dennis:

So your site is also designed to inform? Yes, cool, because, chris, you mentioned one thing about our website on the simplicity of it or something to that. Would you just mention?

Chris:

Yeah, it's simplicity. It's got a lot of facts and things like that, but you don't really do scheduling of gutters or anything through it, Right? So it tells you all the services that you have and things like that and where you're located and your area and stuff like that, and a little bit about your history, your history. But you don't, because your target market isn't a web person, a person you'll typically find on the web and look for services. You know you don't need to bolster that piece of your. You know that piece of your marketing.

Dennis:

Way back in the beginning 10 years ago was the beginning of the gutter monkeys we identified our website primarily to do one thing and that was to validate our marketing. It wasn't a marketing tool. Our marketing tool is our radio footprint. We put a lot of money every month into our radio footprint, but the job of the website was to validate that marketing, Because our target market they really just my target market is, you know, 45 to 85 years old men and women homeowners. Right, I'm not going to say most of the contacts are women, it's not, it's about 50-50. It might lead a little toward the women's side of it, but men's schedule, women's schedule, but the main thing is the age bracket. Most of my customers are between the ages of 50 and 80. Right, and they're of the generation that probably doesn't want to do a lot of online scheduling and work like that. So initially we designed our website to bolster, to validate our radio footprint, and in doing so we take a little bit of criticism here and there. But you have to have a website. Today You've got to have some form of a web presence and our website. While it's very simple and we don't have e-commerce on there, we don't have a lot of the bells and whistles. We feel it does the job, Whereas Brian has a different, he's got a different demographic and he's got to cater to them. That's interesting, Interesting comparison.

Dennis:

All right, Scheduling, that's the key and everyone's different. I won't get into the details of it. We have a good office staff and a good program that you know and we have a really really good, solid team in the field that we can. We have the capacity for a broad schedule. We handle all the towns on Cape Cod, all the towns on the South Shore, so my office staff is really well connected to the team in the field. A couple of things about scheduling is to schedule it when the customer wants it and then we call the day before to confirm. So, Chris, if you call and you schedule a gutter cleaning for, you know, July 5th, well we're going to call you one or two days ahead and confirm that we're going to be there at two o'clock and people do like that. Again, that's just communication. Communication is huge.

Brian:

Yeah with us, whether you book online or schedule with me on the phone, as soon as you're scheduled, you'll get a text and an email of the day and time that we're going to be there. And then, like I think it's a day before you'll get a hey, we're coming. Can you leave a parking space close to the door? We're coming through and you know, here's some helpful hints to help us, help you. And yeah, and then, of course, after you get the hey, how'd you like everything and all that?

Chris:

Yeah, not to knock other gutter companies, but I did have one where I'm living in Worcester and they showed up and they needed to have the water turned on, but they didn't tell us we didn't have the water turned on for them, so we missed our appointment, which kind of was frustrating. So it's nice that you tell them what you need. You know they need a parking space. Make sure you know. If I had a place in a tight spot.

Dennis:

Yeah, that's something that's interesting.

Chris:

That's an interesting thing.

Brian:

Yeah, because it's frustrating for us when we, before all the notifications, we'd get there and it'd be three cars in the way and it's like, well, we never told them to move the car. There you go yeah, so we took care of 99% of that.

Dennis:

Hey Brian, is it common that you have a customer that you will never speak to like from start to finish, where they go online and they schedule it and then you confirm it through a text, through an email, then they get confirmed the day before you show up, you do the work and then, when they're done, you email them an invoice or something? Is it possible that you can take a job from start to finish like that without ever verbally communicating with a customer? Has that ever happened?

Brian:

I think it has, it's not common. Well, that was my next question. Yeah, go it's not common, but I think it has. Like hey, the door you know the deal tucks back hey, the door is open, go do what you got to do and see you later. And then there has been times it is not common, especially a lot of people still working from home, but yeah it has happened.

Dennis:

It happens, it's not rare, but you can't run your business like that Right.

Brian:

Exactly right.

Dennis:

Okay, because I do know somebody in the gutter cleaning business who's trying to do that. He's trying to have not virtually literally no communication, no verbal communication with a customer at all, ever, and it isn't working. His reviews are horrible, I think.

Chris:

I know who you're talking about.

Dennis:

I don't see how it could work.

Chris:

He did my house originally and I think I know who you're talking about Horrible, just terrible. Terrible.

Dennis:

And he's always hitting me up. It's an interesting story. But again, we were having lunch Vice President over there and myself not too long ago. We have a friendly relationship. But yeah, this is he's a younger guy, he's probably mid-30s and, my gosh, there's no customer service. Customer service just takes a big backseat. They're trying to streamline and it just doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Brian:

I can't even imagine it, I just, it just blows my mind. I lived through it. I actually used work. I can't even imagine it, it just blows my mind.

Chris:

I lived through it.

Brian:

I actually used them.

Chris:

I actually lived through it. I could do a whole other podcast on that one interaction with that company.

Dennis:

Brian, you arrive on a job, Boom, talk about on-site customer service. You're going into people's houses, right? I'm not.

Brian:

Right, I'm not Right. Well, you know, from entering the door and going through the areas that the customer would like cleaned and talking it over with the client, customer, client. And so first thing we do, we bring in corner guards which will protect the corners of the doors, and any corners, from pulling the hose.

Dennis:

Yeah, right, From dragging the hose through any corners. From pulling the hose, yeah Right.

Brian:

From dragging the hose through From the hoses, yeah, and then we pre-vacuum.

Dennis:

Nice.

Brian:

And then we do the preconditioning of the carpet and the cleaning of the hot water extraction. Sometimes we do a dryer type cleaning. If the customer would like it dry in like an hour, we have a method to do that as well. But 90 of it would be the hot water extraction and we just do what the customer is expecting of us and hopefully a little more in the areas that they want done. And if there's wood floors, we have mats that we roll out, so the hoses go on the mats. You know protecting their wood floors. We have mats that we roll out, so the hoses go on the mats you know protecting their wood floors as well.

Dennis:

So you're being respectful of the customer's premises.

Brian:

Yeah, it's a crazy new idea, but we're trying to. It seems to work pretty well, so so far.

Dennis:

Brian, you quote over the phone. If I don't know you, I'm calling you up and I say look, I want my living room, dining room, hallway and three bedrooms, the full treatment. How do you quote that over the phone? Is it square footage, is it by the room?

Brian:

Yeah, it's. You know, mostly everything's by the square foot with us. I try to get approximate room sizes with us. I try to get approximate room sizes, I mean. And if it's a bigger house I'll just say, look, I can just come out and we'll go over everything that we're going to do for you and I'll give you an estimate right then and there. But if it's just a small area, a couple of small rooms, I'll give them a good guess and explain to them. We'll measure it and then it is what it is. But I'm sure I'm pretty close 90% of the time of what the price is Sure within 5% or 10%.

Dennis:

Right, yeah, okay.

Chris:

And I know, dennis, you've got maybe a little easier You're looking at the outside of the house, you're using Google Earth and things like that to actually figure out there's several tools that we use.

Dennis:

We use Google Earth, google Maps. I can use town records to get a layout of your house. Sometimes Google Maps doesn't do a street view. I got an aerial view. So if we're measuring gutters for cleaning, virtually 100% of the time we can give you a quote. There's some other tools that we can use, like Zillow and other things. If that house has been listed or sold any time in the last 10 years, we're going to get front back side photos. We can put a really accurate verbal number to you over the phone and then we explain you know, this is I've measured you at 120 linear feet. If it's 126 linear feet it'll be a little bit more. If the actual measurement is 114 linear feet it'll be a little bit less. But we're going to be within 5% to 10% and that's good 99% of the time, right.

Chris:

So they'll get a quote right on the phone. Right on the phone.

Dennis:

Yeah, it's nice, the key is we've solved their problem. They're calling me and if it's my repeat customer, it doesn't matter. We've already done their house three times. I could be on the phone for 30 seconds. I'll say hey, chris, good to talk to you again. Listen, I got all your information. Have you changed email addresses or phone number? You say no. Okay, I'm going to schedule you for X. We'll call you the day before and we get off the phone. I just go copy and paste right off of the back end of our system and put their information in.

Dennis:

But if it's a new customer, you take the extra three, four minutes. You measure their house with the various cyber tools that we have and you give them a pretty accurate, if not dead on, measurement. So that gives us an advantage that maybe a lot of it Like. I can't measure gutter installs like that. There's too many variables. I need to see what you have for fascia board. There's just too many variables. But if we do 6,000 gutter cleanings a year, I can't be running around measuring 6,000 houses for gutter cleaning. My whole office staff can be trained to do this with the online tools, so it really streamlines our process.

Dennis:

Nice, and again, the other thing is the customer that calls that's concerned within three to four minutes. We've given them a price that they're happy with. We've told them about our services. They're happy with that. We've told them about our services, they're happy with that. And we got them on the schedule for next Tuesday. We just took that off of their plate. They can now go back to worrying about the grandkids' birthday party next week or something like that. So that's the key is take this off their plate as fast as you can.

Brian:

Nice, right, and then they can call us to get their carpets clean for the birthday party and the raft.

Chris:

And, if you're lucky, after the birthday party.

Brian:

Yeah, absolutely, the cake is all over the floor.

Dennis:

There you go.

Brian:

The dog. That's right.

Dennis:

Took a dump in the little floor in a panic of it. How do you get paid, brian, what's the payment processes that your customer uses and what payment options do you?

Brian:

guys offer them. As a company, we offer pretty much every payment system out there. I mean, as far as credit cards, cash checks, do you do Venmo, venmo every now and then? I'm not thrilled, but I'll do it if they ask. But yeah, all the cards in and we bill, we email an invoice after and our guys love doing that because typically there's a screen for a tip on there and it gets used quite a bit, quite more than I ever thought it would, and they're doing very well with that because they're giving great experiences. So it works for everybody.

Dennis:

We take cash or check at the time of service and then a few people call in and pay with a credit card, but most everybody again the age bracket Right. Most of my customers are over the age of 60. They're fine writing a check. Yeah, they can find their checkbook?

Chris:

Sure, but if you're, you know Most people don't know where a checkbook is. They've got a bank account, but they have no idea where that checkbook is.

Dennis:

One of my really cool clients. He owns a very unique business and we'll have Tony on after the first of the year. We'll get him on here, but he's got a very interesting business. His target market is ladies 24 to 39, and they just love him. And there is a situation where the vast majority of that group probably doesn't know how to write a check. A lot of the younger kids don't write checks anymore.

Brian:

That's right, they don't even have checks Right.

Dennis:

Everything is e-banking and automatic withdrawals and the stuff that scares the hell out of me. That's their norm. So our buddy Tony has to cater to the 24 to 39 year old lady market and he does, and he does it really well. Talk about Brian, worst case scenario customers pissed off. You or your team went out there and you did not. You did not perform the services. I'm angry at you and and and I'm seething.

Brian:

What do you do? Well, I immediately offer a complete refund and then say we'd still like to come out and correct the issue if possible. I think it's a surprise. I don't remember the last time that has happened but it's a surprise to people when you say, okay, first of all, don't worry about it. Well either, if they owe us, I say, don't worry about paying us. I'll say, well, I'll issue a refund. I have issued refunds, but for different reasons. It just backs them off right away. They cool off. It's disarming actually.

Chris:

Right.

Brian:

That's what I was. It's disarming. That's what I was thinking of.

Chris:

Disarming.

Brian:

Thank you, chris, I've had it happen to me quite a bit, so it's quite disarming. That's because I don't like unhappy customers.

Chris:

We had an experience up with our cleaner. Actually, we had a wine stain or something like that on the floor. They came in, got rid of it. Like a day later it kind of came back and we didn't understand that. That's pretty typical right After the drying process. Sometimes the stain comes back up, called them up, said, oh, what happened? They're like, oh, no problem, that's what happens, we'll come back out. They came back out in like a couple of hours, had it taken care of and we were like completely like well, again what I consider extraordinary customer care, you know, came right back no discussion, took care of it. Yeah, really impressed. It's called wicking, is it wicking.

Dennis:

Yeah, one of the things I think we just hit on I was going to go there, but we already went there is turning a negative into a positive taking something that didn't go well and turning it into an asset.

Dennis:

When you do that, you oftentimes make a lifelong customer. We had one a few years ago. I was on the job. We were installing gutters. I had helped out one of my crews I don't know if we were shorthanded a man or the day was just so full of large gutter installs that I jumped on with that crew. Because I will do that, I'll jump on with whatever crew needs an extra pair of hands. That day we did an awesome job and when the snow melted on the back deck and the areas, they found little scraps of aluminum and they were very upset.

Dennis:

But that can happen. I mean, we clean as we go, but if there's a lot of snow, when the snow melts little things that you'd normally take off with a leaf blower or you pick it up and throw it in the trash. You know it got hidden in the snow and she was really upset and we did an awesome job. I remember how happy she was. And here we are. You know, four weeks later the snow melts and she finds this. I went out like the next day or something, and all I had to do was sweep with the broom and take out the leaf blower, clean things up, pick up a few little things, and she was thrilled she was, but but she was very, very upset when she called and I would think nothing of just going back out there and taking care of it. You know, when we have a person that has a complaint about, you know, say, a gutter cleaning, it's maybe $240. You know, it's not a $6,000 install, $240 gutter cleaning. This didn't happen. You said this. You didn't do that.

Dennis:

First thing I do is I would say I'm going to send a crew out tomorrow ASAP and we're going to take care of this. Can you be there? When we get there, as you said, brian and Chris he said it they feel disarmed, like, oh my gosh, they're actually going to honor their work. That's nine out of 10. Yeah, we just send somebody out, take care of it. And, um, and honestly, if, if we're just so busy, we can't get there tomorrow, I'll just put it on my schedule, I'll just go out tomorrow and we'll fix it. And but sometimes you do get the person that just is looking for free. Yeah, right, right, you do get them. Yeah, and you know what I'll say to them too. What can I do to take care of you. Obviously, a, b and C didn't work. Well, I want a refund. Ok, you'll get a refund. Yeah, I'll have it out to you within three to five days and I just send them their money back and make the customer happy.

Chris:

There's a good story about I think it was Nordstrom's. Guy came into Nordstrom's a few years back with a set of tires. I think it was. An elderly gentleman came in with a set of tires, wanted his money back, didn't like the tires and Nordstrom's was telling him we don't sell tires. He wouldn't let it go. Wouldn't let it go, kept up with it, kept up with it. Eventually they gave him his money back and uh, and of course they used it as a plus for them. But yeah, it was an interesting story with the far end of customers always right, Some tires rolling into Nordstrom's with a set of snow tires, but yeah.

Dennis:

I think the final step toward customer service is the job is done, the customer is happy, the company your company's been paid. And what do you do then? What do you do then, brian? I'm on your monthly mailing list every month because we're a customer at home and also here at our main office. We get one at home of your monthly mailing. It's really cool. Have you ever seen it, chris?

Chris:

No, I haven't seen it.

Dennis:

Really cool. I have the current issue right out there. Talk about that, Brian.

Brian:

Yeah, we do a monthly newsletter. People love it. It's cool, it really is. And we have a monthly contest to win a $25 Amazon card and I get tons of calls for it. People don't even care about the Amazon card. And I get tons of calls from people like they don't even care about the Amazon card, they care about winning. It's like, oh, you don't have to worry. I said, well, anyways, but it's fun. I definitely know when the newsletter hits, because I'll get like 20 calls in about 10 minutes and I have no idea. I hate to break this, I don't write this. So I have no idea what the answer is. I just oh, I know what you're saying. Yeah, I don't write the newsletter, but so I know when it's delivered, and that's a beautiful thing, it's really cool. People love it. People tell us all the time how much they enjoy reading it. And how do I find the time to write it? Honestly, I don't know, but I just love to do it.

Chris:

Do you introduce new products and things like that, new services on that mailer and things like that? Is that how you use it?

Brian:

new services on that, on that um mailer and things like that. Is that how you use it? Yeah, um, it's mostly informative about what's going on that month. Like you know, like in june it's d-days, usually d-day story in there. Of course, this month will be christmas and yes, we are. We have one one, an insert, with what our monthly special is and something on the back of the insert about either Rugpad or Thailand Grout to continue to Do you do email communication?

Brian:

Ongoing email yes, we do After the day of service. Of course they'll get hey, how was the service? Was it great? I hope it was anyways. So we do the day after. We do a three month reminder because we leave a spot, a bottle, a free spot, a bottle case. I need to get any spots right. They can just use our cleaner to take them up, to maintain it and like, in three, three months we'll say if you need a refill, just give us a call. We'll give you a refill and a six-month one saying the same thing, and then a nine-month. Do you do that via email? Yeah?

Brian:

that's the email thing that is pretty much all we do with email. I don't think people read a lot of emails they're getting today. I mean, they don't read our day before email half the time you know about getting ready and it says I got you yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah, a lot of times business emails fall into spam.

Brian:

Yeah.

Dennis:

We do hear about that, but again, we still, you know, we do a two times a year email blast. So we do one in usually like early, early october for the fall uh gutter cleaning season and we do another one in like mid to late march for the spring gutter cleaning season, and other than that we don't really do anything else as far as customer retention, other than we keep the same level of radio footprint out there on the same station where you heard us the first time, so to speak.

Dennis:

I view my radio footprint in three categories. The number one reason that we advertise is to make that phone ring with new customers. The number two reason we advertise the way we do is to continually remind our existing customers, basically to not forget about us and not forget about our services. And the third one it's kind of interesting and I really do believe there's a lot of validity here is to let any potential competitor in my field know that we are here and we spend a lot of money marketing and we really take great pride in owning this territory and we want to keep that territory, work hard to keep that territory for ourselves.

Chris:

That's interesting because a lot of your competitors aren't necessarily really gutter guys. They're like landscaping guys and roofing guys and stuff like that. It's kind of a discouragement for them not to bother in the gutter industry when they see you're out there Well you got to remember too.

Dennis:

You're talking about gutter cleaning. Okay, we're in two industries gutter installs and gutter cleaning and we're 50-50, basically, I know almost all my competitors in the gutter cleaning world. Some of them I'm friends with. I have two or three of my competitors that they're my buddies. They've been over the house, we have lunch together. They're good folks and I like them and I respect them.

Dennis:

Gutter cleaning though it's such a low level trade that most people who view themselves as a skilled tradesman don't want to stoop that low. I've got guys I've probably got 10 to 12 of my, I would say I have 10 of my co-workers in the field who used to be self-employed or who used to run crews for other companies that are now running a crew here and it's not beneath their dignity. Wow. And that's our competitive advantages. We have very highly skilled guys that are willing to do this. You know, seemingly low-level task of cleaning gutters. And, yeah, we do have some competitors in the landscape space. They don't do what we do, they just take a blower and blow the crap out of the gutter. You know, we check every hanger to make sure it's tight. We clean, we flush and we do a lot of extra things.

Dennis:

But the marketing is threefold. One of them is, you know, get new customers, retention of old customers and to basically let everybody customers, potential competitors, everybody else that this is a market and a territory that we take very seriously and we service these people, we service these homes. We take great pride in this and we don't want you to be our competitor. We really want to own this territory. So that's the number three, kind of like being a little bit of a bully, if you will Like. This is my neighborhood and you can't hang out here.

Chris:

Yeah, you're marking your territory, which is a great, actually a great term to use, I guess, when we have a rug cleaning guy in the house, right?

Brian:

Absolutely. I like that.

Chris:

Yeah, actually I had a joke about that. We were talking about, you know, cleaning around the dog bowl. Especially you have a new spot remover out, right?

Brian:

Right, your own version of it. Yeah, it's a deodorizer and spot remover for pet accidents. It's a great product. It's safe on almost all fabrics and, so far, people are loving it.

Dennis:

You gave one to me and I thank you for that. I haven't used it yet, but it's a good-looking product. The label looks good, it really looks. It's awesome.

Chris:

It's a nice add-on. Again. It's adding to your service. You know, keep adding to it and once you get the foot in the door there, you Right, right, and you spend all that money on marketing. You might as well get your foot in the door there.

Brian:

Exactly. Yeah, we'll see how that goes. I mean, for our clients it's going to be great and you know, we'll see where we can expand that. As far as seeing some vets or even dog sitting places that they're popping up all over the place, yeah, Sure, they're popping up all over the place.

Chris:

Yeah, sure, my wife the other day asked me if I had seen the dog bowl and I told her I didn't know.

Dennis:

he did Very good.

Brian:

Okay.

Dennis:

All right, you were talking about spot remover.

Chris:

I thought you were talking about a dog named Spot.

Dennis:

You're going to kick him out of the house, or something.

Chris:

Doing the research for this, I came across that yeah, oh, that's a dad joke spot. You're going to kick him out of the house or something.

Dennis:

Doing the research for this, I came across that that's a dad joke. You're going to wrap up on that one, Chris.

Chris:

Yeah, I think we had it. I think that's the way we're going to go.

Dennis:

Brian, you've been our first guest. We've done a lot of fun things, you and me, over the years. Thank you for joining us.

Brian:

Thanks for having me. This is a blast, absolutely.

Chris:

Yeah, I'll give you your business card too, because Worcester's not too far from where you are.

Brian:

No, yeah, it's funny. We were discussing that, I think, yesterday, john and I about that area Again.

Chris:

Yeah, another service I didn't know you did. You did hardwood floors. We have hardwood floors at home. We don't have that many carpets anymore. We clean them.

Brian:

We don't refinish. We did and that's not a lot of fun, so we don't.

Dennis:

That's different tools, it's a different skill set. Yeah, I got you.

Chris:

Well, it was great talking with everybody tonight. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but yeah, thanks, brian.

Dennis:

Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me Enjoyed it. No monkeys were harmed in the making of this podcast. All right.

Chris:

See you next time. Thank you for tuning in to Monkey Business Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to subscribe, like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us reach more aspiring entrepreneurs like you, and if you've got a question or topic you'd like us to cover, leave a comment or reach out to us on social media. We'd love to hear your thoughts and keep the conversation going. Don't forget to leave us a five-star review if you found the episode valuable, and make sure to share it with anyone who might benefit from our tips and stories. We'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by American Gutter Monkeys LLC. Build real wealth through business ownership. For details, visit us at AmericanGutterMonkeyscom.