I have been in the asset maintenance industry for over 30 years now, climbing my way up the ladder of success. Most people in my industry know me or know of me.
I started off as an apprentice Electrician and have clawed my way up to now be a General Manager; if I can do it any of you operational boys can … and I am here to help you!!
Over the years I have learned some valuable lessons on how to be successful and I thought I should share my never-fail strategies when dealing with invoice recipients and the other bits of our business.
I have thought about this for a while and have come up with five of my best strategies; these are the ones that I want all my operations staff to know about and use, BUT please do not send this to anyone outside of operations, because literally they will not get it!!
Anyway, looking forward to another successful year, so get out there, take no prisoners and look forward to your mandatory pay rise in August: remember, our 2010 EBA is ending but you still have another 6% pay rise coming.
Here are my Top 5 Success Strategies:
# 1 The Pig Strategy:
The Issue: Customer is complaining about your service delivery.
Root Cause: It is a ploy … don’t get sucked in they are just trying to screw your rates down.
Short term strategy: Grab the issue with both hands, smother it in lipstick (that means put a positive spin on it) and state one of the following,
“Don’t worry we’re gunna fix it” or “Don’t worry, we will be employing more people SOON” or “Sorry, our admin is a bit thick”
Long term strategy: Repeat, short term strategy.
#2 The Columbia Strategy:
The Issue: The customer continues complaining about your service and from multiple sources.
Root Cause: The Hundredth Money Effect.
Short Term Strategy: State to the customer “don’t worry we will fix it”. State to your company stakeholders “Don’t worry they are just trying to screw our rates down.”
Long Term Strategy: As per short term strategy, however, if you lose the contract state the following “Fuck, didn’t see that one coming”, and silently thank your lucky stars they have gone because they were a genuine pain in the arse.
#3 The OPUD Strategy:
The Issue: You are consistently not delivering the service you are contracted to perform.
Root Cause: Your sales department, yet again, have overpromised your ability to do the work we are expected to do. Not your fault this is classic case of OPUD – ‘overpromised and underdelivered’.
Short Term Strategy: Hit them up for a rate increase, that’ll teach them.
Long Term Strategy: Never stop blaming sales for the operational issues, these issues are not actually real anyway. Remember the customer is the issue, oh and sales, they are both there to make your life in operations an absolute misery.
#4 The Sorbent Single Ply Strategy:
The Issue: You are not getting follow up work, repairs, parts sales and some projects that you deserve are being given to competitors.
Root Cause: Your rates are way to low and they always have been (sales again); how can you be expected to sell those highly profitable parts when the labor rate is so low.
Short Term Strategy: Hit the customer up for a significant rate rise, and if they don’t do it – stop talking to them and stop showing up to do the work and reduce your admin head count fast.
Long Term Strategy: Ride it out and when the contract comes up again, make sure sales aren’t involved to fuck it up and go for the rate you know you truly deserve! The customer needs to realise once and for all that you pay for shit you get shit, seriously, who do they think they are.
#5 The Trump Strategy:
The Issue: The Account Managers, never stop whining and bitching about your service delivery and meeting the contract KPI’s.
Root Cause: These losers are mostly come from sales, and theres’ the root cause, right there! These soft, fluffy do-gooder greenies need constant attention, a pat on the head and always something to bitch about. They are worse than the customer, it’s like they are one of them!
Short Term Strategy: Blame them, ignore them, pat them on the head if you have to … but for fucks sake don’t listen to them, they are masters of deception and ‘fake news’ … they are wholly responsible for any customer’s complaints.
Long Term Strategy: Repeat, repeat, repeat the short-term strategy. They will eventually break and leave the business or go out on stress or better still go to a competitor.
There you have it lads, the top five customer strategies that will never let you down … all the best and see you at the top!