Let's talk!

Lately I have been trying take every call anyone wants to have about a new project, our company or how we do what we do. It isn’t always a perfect method but it sure makes my day more interesting. In a world that is moving toward more autonomous, impersonal, asynchronous forms of communication, I believe that the magic is in the alternative direction. No menu weirdness, labyrinths of button pressing or customer service representatives. Just me.

Just dial 1-888-844-6256 and ask for Kevin. Try to keep it between 9AM- 6PM PST, Monday – Friday.

If I am available I will take your call and we can discuss anything you like. No meeting or prescheduled time is necessary. If I can’t take your call my receptionist will take your message and I will follow up as soon as I can. The more information you provide about the reason you are calling the more I will be prepared for the follow up call.

I am looking forward to hearing from you! continue …

Keeping your word

One of the most important aspects to delivering a terrific customer experience is the ability to keep a promise. The most obvious way to keep your word is clearly communicating honest truth about what you can offer. Another way is offering the best way for a customer to find the maximum benefit or savings when working with you, even though it might not equate to making you the most money initially. Delivering something on-time, on-budget with the quality and features they were expecting is yet another way to manage the customer’s expectations. You can also decline or offer an alternative if the customer has an expectation that isn’t realistic or just a bad way to approach the situation. If you can’t meet their expectations communicate that fact and offer an solution to part of their problem you can wholeheartedly deliver on.

Nobody’s perfect. No one expects any service to be 100% flawless all of the time. The world is unpredictable. We try like hell to keep our promises and endlessly apologize when we can’t come through. All that a customer wants is the dependability and honesty that they deserve. That they are paying for. If things happen that will impact their expectations they want to know that they can trust you to inform them. That you’ll make your best efforts to keep it from happening again in the future. Try not falling on your sword and make a decision to end the relationship on the customer’s behalf. They have the right to choose the punishment for not meeting their expectations. Not you. You could make things worse by not allowing them to decide. Quitting because you can’t deliver or meet their expectations is much worse than admitting that you’ve tried and it may need more money/effort/time to meet their desire.

That’s it. It is really simple stuff.

Keeping your word is so important to creating long lasting relationships with customers and receiving positive recommendations that will provide new opportunities. Instead of sugar coating it, coming up with another excuse or just finding a way to omit the truth. Consider keeping your word and really making the effort to go above and beyond to do so. I assure you that it will mean all the difference in the world to your customers and will help you build a legendary reputation. continue …

Place an order

I have an idea I would like to share with our existing and future customers…

Just place an order with us.

That’s it. At New Leaders we’ve been spending the last three years building a business that can accept on-demand requests from customers that need to get creative and technical work done. We’ve got no shortage of work to do but I would like to reduce the rigamarole with getting started. It is really costly for both of us.

To continue reading this post please continue …

The New Engine Yard Site

I am very proud to announce that the new Engine Yard website has launched. We worked for over a month with Engine Yard to help them create a much smaller more focused site that aimed to be as simple as possible. While the previous site design was solid we need to provide even more clarity to customers. The new design is clean and modern. We’re pleased to hear that is is being received well and we’ll continue to help Engine Yard refine the site until it is perfect.

Visit Engine Yard to view the site continue …

Procore for iPhone

With the help of their mighty developers, New Leaders designed the new Procore for iPhone application. More than merely just a client, the new Procore iPhone app delivers audio recording, transcription, photos galleries and location integration. In a fairly short period of time we were able to create a tool that far exceeds the experience a web application can provide. Procore for iPhone is only for existing Procore users. We really hope you’ll consider becoming one.

“Create, manage and share construction project data on your iPhone. Changes made on your iPhone show up instantly in Procore, letting you bring Procore with you, wherever you’re working. You can use Procore for iPhone to search project Directories, create and assign Punch List items, add notes to Daily Logs, add to Photo collections, and more.”

Check out the the new Procore for iPhone App continue …