Tag: garagedoor

Garage Door Motors and Customer Solutions (5-18-22)

Last week was about fixing garage door sensors and seeing things through the eyes of our customers.  This week we will continue our garage door story and look at right sizing solutions.

As I mentioned last week, basically everything about the garage door except the door itself broke.  After the guy assessed the damage, he came back to me and offered a few different estimates.  One of the key differences in the estimates was the price of the motor that physically opened the garage door.  Naturally, I asked him the difference between the more and less expensive motors.  The basic model was a solid garage door motor that would last for years.  The upgraded model was also dependable with regards to opening the door for years to come PLUS it had a brighter garage light, a built-in camera, and blue tooth capabilities so I could open and close the garage with my phone.  I looked at the repair man and explained, “The upgraded model sounds really cool, but I just need something that can open and close the door.”  I appreciated the fact that he wasn’t a pushy salesperson.  He recognized that I was a consumer who didn’t care about all the bells and whistles, so he proceeded to give me the solution that fit my needs.   

How does this connect to anything?  In the above example, the upgraded garage door motor is not bad.  In fact, there are some people who would likely appreciate and benefit from what the upgraded motor has to offer.  It’s just not what I need.  The best thing the repair person did was understand who I am as a customer and then tailored his solution offering to me.  Tailoring solutions isn’t easy.  I don’t know about you, but throughout my career which has spanned sales, communications, training, market research, and marketing, I’ve found that when we build solutions it’s easy to lose sight of who we are building for.  In all these roles I’ve had moments where I became so enamored with what I thought was cool that I didn’t pause to think about whether it would ultimately serve my customer.  Has this ever happened to you?  Much like the repair person, we could probably all benefit from making sure we understand the people we serve and better tailoring to their needs.

The challenge: Are you building solutions to be cool for you OR are you building them to meet the needs of our customers? 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Garage Door Sensors and Seeing Through the Eyes of our Customers (5-11-22)

This week we will kick-off a series inspired by home improvements.  We’ll start by looking at garage door sensors and seeing things through the eyes of our customers.

The other night we heard a random noise, and then the next morning the garage door couldn’t open.  I called a repair person to come and check it out.  My wife told me to make sure I had him look at the sensors.  She explained they annoyed her sometimes because they were so finicky and would stop the door from closing properly.  The repair person arrives and basically everything is broken EXCEPT the door itself.  While the sensors weren’t broken, I mentioned that my wife had issues with them from time to time and I’d have to adjust them once every couple of months to get them working.  It wasn’t a big deal, but still asked if he could do anything to help with those. 

He replaced all the broken parts and hooked us up with new sensors (see beautiful picture).  Fast forward a few days and my wife is raving about how the repairs have changed her life.  I was confused why she was so excited about a working garage door.  She told me she was excited the sensors worked.  That’s when I learned that although I might have only been adjusting them once every couple of months, she was having almost daily fights with the sensors.  I was only being notified of the issue if she was unable to get it to work.  This revelation put her desire for new garage door sensors in a new light.

What does this have to do with anything?  In the above situation, I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the sensor problem.  I was only seeing the tip of the iceberg.  I was so fixated on MY experience with the garage door sensors that I never stopped to consider that my wife could be having a different experience.  If I would have known how troublesome the sensors were, I likely would have tried to do something to fix them sooner.  As I reflect on this story, I can’t help but see the parallels to being customer centric.  As we serve our customers, how often do we truly understand their needs?  More importantly, how often do we truly understand the magnitude of what they are going through?  The things that might seem small to us, might be significant to the people we serve.  The only way we can help them is by walking in their shoes and truly seeing the world from their perspective.

The challenge: Are you seeing situations through the eyes of your customers?

Bonus thought: Take the above learning about customers and apply it to the people you lead.  Do you truly understand things from their perspective?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry