“My painter does such a great job for me. The next time I need something painted, I wouldn’t even consider going to anyone else.”

Do your customers talk about you this way? To make sure they do, incorporate some of these winning customer service strategies into your business practices when you complete your next job.

Be the clean-up person

Once the job is finished, nothing ruins a good paint job quicker than leaving a mess behind. Some painting contractors take cleanliness to a new level. Ken Doyle of Emerald Isle Painting in Phoenix, Arizona makes it a point to clean the carpet in the room he has painted.

“It only takes an hour,” he says. “And people love stuff like that.”

Doyle says he once moved a tree for a customer because she was having a difficult time getting her landscaper to do the work. “Going the extra mile really helps when it comes to repeat business,” he says.

No bill ’til 100% satisfied

Future business also comes from taking the time to make sure the customer is satisfied with the current job.

“We call the customer and make sure everything is up to the standards they expected,” says Dave Rohde of Rohde Custom Painting in Onalaska, Wisconsin.

“If everything is not exactly the way they thought it would be, I send the guys out to make sure that it is. I make sure the customer is completely satisfied before I send out an invoice.”

Walk the site personally

Likewise, Gary Brousseau of Brousseau Painting in Windsor, Ontario, personally walks through each completed job with the customer. “The customer and I go through the house room by room,” he says. “We check it wall by wall, ceiling by ceiling, to make sure it’s perfect.” Brousseau once painted a bedroom and found out later that the husband of the woman who contracted the work didn’t like the color.

Brousseau went back to the job site, where the woman had picked a new color that her husband liked. She didn’t have a lot of money to pay for the project, however, so Brousseau made a deal that she pay only for paint.

“I did the repaint for free,” he says. “That went a long way.” He received so much future business from her and other members of her family that it easily made up for the time he spent repainting the bedroom.

Leave something behind

One more tip: Rohde likes to leave customers the leftover opened cans of paint used in their home. That way they can do minor touchups later if there is call.

“We label each can clearly, marking the date of the paint job and on which room the paint was used,” he says. “I also send a note to them later to let them know that all their colors are recorded and will be kept on file in our office. That gives them peace of mind.”

This article was originally published on July 1, 2019. Story by Mike Starling, PPC Editor. Get more pro marketing and management tips in the PPC digital Edition .