Tips From the Pits

By Terri Maldonado, ACC, MCC

Some Intel workers in Arizona have been going to pit-stop school and their experiences were written about in a local newspaper. They were learning how race car pros get their expensive equipment back on track accurately and in record time. I thought the comparison of changing tires to fixing a computer could have just as easily been between changing tires and serving a travel customer. You may be asking yourself, what does NASCAR racing have to do with taking care of one of our customers? That newspaper article had five tips that can apply to us:
Have your tools in place and know what you are going to accomplish. Home Based travel consultants have a myriad of tools to use as we talk with a prospective client. Our computers offer quick access to supplier Web sites and pricing. Headsets give us hands-free access to our dialing and keyboard pads. PDAs, cell phones and Blackberry devices mean we can talk with our customers from anywhere at anytime. We can have our calendars and files with us wherever we are. But, if these tools aren’t tuned up and in good service, they do no good. In fact, a customer doesn’t want to hear, “My computer is going so slow today” any more than a pit crew wants to hear, “My lug-nut gun isn’t turning today.” So, get organized BEFORE you make a client connection. Lay out the things you’ll need and check all your equipment. The key to making the most of your equipment investment is excellence in maintenance. Don’t limp along with something that isn’t operating at full speed...get it fixed!
Understand all the tasks and evaluate how long each one takes. Time is money for both you and your customer. The driver of an expensive race car knows exactly how long a pit stop lasts. He plans his stops when that time will most effectively fit into the remainder of the race. The pit-stop crew races against the clock. Excellence for them is doing it faster than planned. Just a few seconds can mean the race. If you’ve told a customer you only need a minute or two of their time, it’s important to stick to that statement. Time how long it takes you to do an online booking. Know ahead of time how long it takes to collect insurance information, create a client profile and print a confirmation. Saving your client some time is like giving them back their most precious and limited commodity...a minute of their day.
Record it. A video or a taped conversation can give instant feedback on how and where to improve. Even a mirror right next to your phone can help with your customer relationships. Have you ever noticed if your voice has a smile in it? Through the use of a video of a booking, you may discover your phone is on the wrong side of your desk, or you are constantly leaving your printer to return to your desk for scissors. Workflow issues can be identified quickly by watching yourself perform routine tasks. Listening to a taped conversation with your clients can alert you to speech patterns that may be annoying…who among us doesn’t notice speakers who say “ah” and “um” a hundred times? You may be doing that in your phone calls. Check out the friendliness of your voice tone. Is it warm and welcoming or sharp and cold? A tune-up may be in order.
Do it right the first time. Mistakes are costly. Double check your work. The guys in the pits always give the lug nuts one last crank before they send the car back out on the track. If speeding things up causes you to make mistakes, the issue may not be in the speed, it may be that you have a need for repetition. If you ask the same questions every time you collect client data, you will not forget to get just what you need for a customer profile. If you develop a routine to follow, you will cut the potential for errors dramatically.
Evaluate how to make things better the next time. The pit crew, driver and all other race team members review every race. They view tapes, check their times, kick the tires and make plans to do it better the next time. If you aren’t already asking your customers questions about their satisfaction with your services, now is the time to begin. You can get simple postcard surveys pre-printed to ask your returning customers to evaluate your services. Or, you can pick up the phone and call them. Here are the questions I like to ask:
• What did I do really well that you hope I’ll do every time I serve you?
• What do you wish I hadn’t done?
• Is there anything I need to add to make things go better for you in the future?
• Do any of your friends, family or acquaintances need my services?
These five lessons from NASCAR pit-stop crews can make you more competitive and efficient. So, you may not know who won last year’s Indy 500, but you now have an idea of how the way a pit-stop crew works can help your business.

Terri Maldonado, CTC, is the owner and driving force behind CruiseGal, a network of professional travel consultants.