I want my clients to really understand the flooring process and the options that they have. I encourage them to ask me any question no matter how ‘dumb’ their question may seem. I make it a point to personally respond to questions quickly and I’ll spend whatever time is necessary to answer the question to my client’s satisfaction. My clients get an education on flooring Whether they ask for it or not. This becomes very important in the decision making process.
This is not standard operating procedure in the flooring industry. I don’t know many flooring guys that educate their clients. It’s more common in the flooring industry to only educate to sell clients on what they have in stock or the product they are pushing at the time. Sometimes the answers they give are incomplete or just plain wrong to push their clients into something that they want to install instead of educating with information and options and letting their clients choose.
It really comes down to priorities. I’m in business to create lifetime clients because in my experience, when you treat someone with care and respect, you get great referrals and word of mouth. Just recently I helped a client who came to me as a referral. After having a bad experience when she had her floors originally installed and finished. Reluctantly she had me over for an estimate and a consultation on her floors. She told me that she had been putting it off because of her precious experience and didn’t want her house filled with dust and be forced to move out for a week. She was so thrilled when I informed her about our dustless sanding system and finish that didn’t have an odor or toxins. She was excited at the cost savings of our new finishes that don’t require staining the floor to achieve the results of changing the color to what she wanted. When we finished on the scheduled time and she was able to see the floor she said she couldn’t have imagined her floors would look so nice. She kept saying how my company really focuses on quality and offering the best options at a competitive rate. When she gave me a check at the end she said you’d better give me a big handful of business cards because there are a lot of people in my neighborhood I want to send your way!