Business Summary
1-800-GOT-JUNK? is pioneering an industry that is helping residents and businesses remove junk and regain space. Whether it’s a pile of household junk in the garage or a warehouse full of office furnishings, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? removes it for you, making the ordinary business of junk removal exceptional. They are passionate about recycling and donating to charity. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? was founded in 1989 and now operates throughout North America and Australia.
Is trust Really That Important?
Customer trust is extremely important to 1-800-GOT-JUNK? because they strive to be an admired brand in each of their regions that they operate, as well as on an international level. From a business perspective, they want to build our business in an organic fashion through positive word of mouth and consumer trust is the catalyst of this. Most importantly, they want to be viewed as invited guests in their customer’s home or businesses.
How to Build that Trust?
Building sustainable consumer trust is the offspring of efforts that 1-800-GOT-JUNK? frontline employees, truck team members and call centre agents have to provide to their customers. Customer trust begins and ends with the people who build the relationships with customers, which is why they focus so much attention on their people. A vision is created for the frontline employees so they can clearly understand why they are in business. Their vision is called the Painted Picture, a written document by their Founder and CEO that depicts what their company will look and feel like four years in advance. Within the Painted Picture, they have service commitments that they strive for such as: reaching a specific Net Promoter System score of 90 and being the Zappos of the service industry.
Some Quality Focus Areas that 1-800-GOT-JUNK? focuses on are on-time service, up front rates, clean and shiny trucks and friendly professionals. When these guidelines are in place, it allows their employees to better understand what it takes to build customer trust and WOW their customers each and every time.
Net Promoter System
A reliable set of metrics that 1-800-GOT-JUNK? uses to measure and gage their customer loyalty is through Net Promoter System. This metrics evaluates customer loyalty by asking one simple question:
“On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend 1-800-GOT-JUNK? to your friends and family?”
Any customer that rates a 9 or 10 is considered a “promoter” or someone who is a raving fan of your business. A 7 or 8 would be classified as a “passive” or someone who was content but not as a loyal as a “promoter.” Anyone who rates a 0-6 is a “detractor” or someone who was not satisfied with your product or service and will spread negative news about your brand.
Scores are calculated by taking the percentage of your Promoters and subtract them from the percentage who are Detractors.
When 1-800-GOT-JUNK? first launched the Net Promoter System in October of 2008, their score was 71. Today, their score is 80, any score above an 80 is considered to be a world class that rivals other admired brands such as Harley Davidson, Apple and American Express.
Other Ways of Building Trust
To ensure that frontline employees are focused on building customer trust, it is important to educate them in customer centricity. All employees are given extensive training both in a classroom environment and shadowing veteran employees or managers. The training ensures that all employees will be able to identify their customers’ personality. They learn how to build rapport and resolve matters that may arise to ensure customers are left with a WOW experience. Their training program may range from a few weeks to a couple of months, depending on the job, in order to ensure that all employees are fully prepared to interact with their most valuable asset: their customers.
As a result of the extensive training, managers see the confidence that employees have when performing the service. The confidence of the employee means flawless service that their customers become loyal to.
Another way to earn customer trust is “empowerment.” With the correct vision and education, employees are empowered to take action when situations arise that may negatively affect their customer’s experience. This negative experience would be a detriment to their customer trust, so they encourage their employees to do what is necessary to appease their customers.
This has caused a decline in customer complaints, which is a direct result of empowering their employees. Employees are trusted to make things right before any situation arise that would jeopardize their consumer’s trust.
