Most of what a good company does is driven by the desire to eliminate surprises. The reality is that there will likely be some.
How do you set expectations with clients about how emergencies will be dealt with? Here is what we would review with our clients when the transfer of responsibility of the project from Sales to Production was occurring. I’m presenting it here as if I were putting this procedure into a web or print form that would be shared with clients. Open with this:
The first step is to set up the expectation that despite our best efforts something might go wrong, so we better address it now.
By defining what is and is not an emergency we are getting on the same page before, not after, something goes awry. When reviewing this with a client I would say, only partly in jest, “Don’t call us in the middle of the night if you have finally figured out the paint colors!”
From here, it’s on to the next step:
Notice the sequences: Cell number first, then home number. Why? The client was being trained to use the cell number for the production team members for communicating with the company going forward. Their home number is to be used ONLY for a true emergency.
Notice also the order of who to call: First the Lead Carpenter, then the Production Manager, and then the Owner/Salesperson. That is the way those positions related to the job. Once the Sales to Production handoff happened, the Lead Carpenter, for all intents and purposes, was the company. The better job of setting that expectation, then the more likely the Production Manager and Owner/Salesperson could focus on getting done what would only get done if they did it, by not getting routinely dragged back into the project.
Finish with this:
Particularly these days, with texting and email, it is very important to get clear that your company is not going to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I would mention to the client that our people could only do the quality of work and process we were selling if they had a good personal life and got sufficient rest.
To further emphasize how important all the above was to us, I would jokingly tell the client that if they had to call me as a last resort our company would come up with a new system to prevent that happening again in the future and it would be named after them!
Basically, being regarded by your client at the end of the job as the best choice depends on how well you set expectations with them before the job starts. Like with most things in life, the best way to avoid emergencies is to anticipate they will happen and teach all involved what they can expect from each other if one occurs.
There is no way you can do that after the fact! The truth of that shouldn’t be a surprise.