BACK TO BASICS you to price the job accordingly. On lockouts, you’ll want to know where they are relative to the door in question and where you can find them. If the customer lives in an apartment building and is call- ing from a neighbor’s apartment, either get her to meet you in the lobby, or ask for the neighbor’s apartment number and phone number, and let her wait there. If someone is outside a locked lobby door, it’s a good idea to have her ask a neighbor to let her into the lobby. Most people will figure this out for themselves, but suggest it if they don’t. This avoids a delay when you get there and the possibility of having to pick the front door lock as well. Where I am, people ring bells, and neighbors who recognize them but don’t socialize with them will let them in. On car lockouts, get the physical address of whatever house or building the car is in front of, if there is one. At a mall or shop- ping center, tell them to wait in front of or inside a store and not by the car. Wouldn’t you rather look for the “front door of Sears” instead of a “white Toyota Camry” in a sea of 10,000 cars? The front door of Sears isn’t going anywhere, but the car could be any- place. It’s also safer for the customer than standing by a car by herself at night. Telling them to wait by a building door on car lockouts has an added bonus. If mall security or a tow truck slim-jims the cus- tomer and he skips out on you, he won’t be waiting at the door, will he? If he was at the car and skipped out, you could waste your time looking for him instead of going home or to the next job. On all lockouts, ask if the customer has identification before you go; he may not have it. It’s possible he stepped out with the garbage and the door locked behind him, or he may have been mugged. A neighbor or property manager can oſten vouch for him. Another way is to ask where the keys or ex- tra set of keys will found be aſter you open the door, or which drawer in the kitchen has WWW.ALOA.ORG “There are few things as frustrating as traveling to a job twice because you don’t have what you need on the truck and then having to go get it without being paid for extra travel time.” the silverware in it. Strangers aren’t likely to know that. You need to assess the situation and decide if you want to do the job or not. On all jobs, ask how customers intend to pay you. If they don’t have a form of payment that you accept, you won’t waste a trip to find that out. You’ll also want to give them some idea of an estimated price. If it’s 9 p.m. and your minimum service call is $125, tell them. This way you avoid sticker shock and “I didn’t think it would be that much.” On repairs or installation, you want to get as much information as you can about what’s there already: brand, finish, what’s wrong, etc. Very oſten, you can ask the cus- tomer to send you a picture of the door with a smartphone. I’ve found this to be a huge help to pinning down what you need so you can make sure you have it on your truck. A picture of a ratty-looking old mortise lock will make you check your stock of Mag-Kits and cylindrical locks. On rekeys, ask them to read you the num- bers on the existing key, such as SC1, or KW1 so you know what keyway you need. Ask how many new keys they’ll need and cut them before you go. You might consider printing up a check- list with all these questions plus any of your own that you think of. This will ensure that you get all the information you need. Ask- ing these questions will also uncover some things that might cause you to refuse the job, such as a car lockout that can only pay by check. You Want Fries With That? If you’re thinking what do French fries have to do with this?, they have everything to do with it. That one phrase, repeated endlessly at drive-throughs, has sold billions of fries that people may not have considered buy- ing otherwise. At a nice restaurant, even if you’re full, what happens when they wheel out that dessert cart? If you’re in the habit of doing quick rekeys, handing someone the two keys you get with it, getting your money and running out the door, then you’re losing money. If you re- place cheap broken locks with cheap new locks without suggesting upgrading locks Don’t Waste Your Time We hear the cliché “time is money” so often that I wonder if it goes in one ear and out the other with some peo- ple. The fact is that most clichés have a lot of truth to them, and this one is spot on. You don’t want to be the guy in the example. Here’s an example of someone who didn’t get it. I knew a guy who worked for a city housing authority repairing washers and dryers. On the side, he re- paired machines for a guy who owned several Laundromats. I met him early one morning as he repaired several machines before going to work. We started talking and he told me how the owner used to call an es- tablished appliance repairman who charged a $60 service charge for what he was doing. He held up the part he was fixing and snorted “I can fix this for $15 and the owner loves me.” I re- plied, “Of course he loves you. You’re charging him 25% of what the other guy charges. Has it occurred to you that you have to do four times the work to get the same $60?” He’d never thought of it that way before. — TW JANUARY 2014 KEYNOTES 51
