Post Closing Techniques for Service Technicians to Prevent Buyers Remorse

Buyers remorse is a good business owners worst nightmare. Unsatisfied customers are frustrating for all contractors and can be damaging to a company's reputation. Post closing techniques are the key to preventing buyers remorse and making sure your company has satisfied customers (and referral sources).

Service technicians have the opportunity to ensure buyers remorse doesn't happen, even after written authorization is received from the customer to do the work.

Here's a good example of this: Recently, a service technician at work was called to a home. The wife was home but the husband was not. Their furnace hadn't been maintained since it was installed 5 years earlier. After some careful and thorough diagnostics, the technician got written authorization from the wife to fix the problem and got the heat up and running. The next day, the husband called the company to complain. "My wife got taken advantage of. All your guy had to do was change a dirty filter and I got ripped off!”

To avoid buyers remorse from the second homeowner, here’s what the service technician should have done:

1. Ask probing questions. Information is key to preventing buyers remorse. Ask when is the last time maintenance was done on the furnace. Find out if any other emergency service calls were made on the equipment.


2. Educate the customer. Show the customer the “problem” area and give some education on what can be done to prevent it from happening again. Be thorough in your diagnosis. Make sure the owner who makes the buying decision understands the reason for the repair.


3. Be assured of the customer's satisfaction. In the case where one owner is home and the other isn't, show the customer the repair and that everything is working properly. Get the customer to verbalize their satisfaction before you leave. If there is any hesitation or issue, deal with it then and there.

These post-closing techniques would have turned the wife into an advocate for the service technician who sold the repair.

You can read more about post-closing techniques to prevent buyers remorse in the book, "Selling at the Kitchen Table: A Contractor's Guide to Closing the Deal".

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