Moving Words – Impressions

Timothy Brady

“First impressions matter. Experts say we size up new people in somewhere between 30 seconds and two minutes.” Elliott Abrams

According to many studies on the subject, you’ve got fewer than 30 seconds to make either a negative or a positive impression on someone. In business, this can mean the difference between losing, landing – or keeping a customer. Ask yourself: What would impress me?

If your initial contact is by phone, your customer’s impression is determined by the way you handle the phone call.

Did you:

1. answer the phone in a professional, business-like manner?
2. speak clearly and slowly enough so the listener has time to understand what you were saying?
3. allow the caller/customer to express the reason for his call? You didn’t interrupt, but let him fully express his thought or point?
4. immediately respond to the caller’s request or need? In trucking, most people calling to have you haul something need immediate action. If you had to get information or details, did you give your caller a time when you’d get back to him/her with the answers?
5. speak with the person on the other end, not to an unknown him/her? Did you listen to what he said, and repeat any questions he asked back to be sure you understood the request?use correct language? This is particularly important. Use of expletives or the latest street slang would diminish your value to the customer/caller very quickly.

Another area to consider is how you handle cell phone business calls.

1. Let all calls go to voice mail. In areas where using a hands-free cell phone while driving is permitted, keep conversations short and to the point. If the conversation will require more than a minute or two, wait to take the call until you can pull over. Nothing is more disconcerting for a customer than hearing your reaction to something another driver just did, instead of shipment information.
2. Record a voice mail message that says you’re unavailable but will return the call as soon as possible. It’s easier to listen to a voice mail message to determine its level of importance and the best time to return the call when you’re not driving.

For the rare fax request (not so common nowadays but still used) or the ubiquitous email communication, try these to make a good impression:

1. Every fax should always have a cover sheet with the company and person the fax is going to, your company name, your name, a contact phone number and email address. It should also include your logo, with MC and DOT numbers listed below your moving company’s name.
2. Also mark its level of importance, special information which would help the recipient handle the contents of the fax, and the total number of pages in the fax.
3. Check spelling, grammar and general tone of the message before sending your fax or email.

Yes, it’s true you can only make a first impression once, whether over the phone, fax or internet. But to keep your valued customers, you need to think of their ‘WOW – What an awesome moving company’ impression and how to maintain that with every communication.

“We don’t know where our first impressions come from or precisely what they mean, so we don’t always appreciate their fragility.” – Malcolm Gladwell