I have seen the future

 

BY ELLEN ROHR,

contributing writer

 

Congratulations, Phc News! Look how grown up you are. Ten years fly by.

 

One look at your kid proves it. How did our son Max get to be 23 years old? Seems like fifteen minutes ago he was just starting high school. I remember when he was 13, a brand new teenager, thinking that this was a critical time to pay attention. It was important to understand him and keep the communication flowing. So, we chose not to pick the battle of purple hair. We did go on fun vacations together. We chose to talk about drinking and driving.

 

And thank goodness for cell phones. By the time Max started driving, cell phones were easily available and affordable. (Ten years earlier, they were the size of a brick, and required a home equity loan.) Some of our best conversations have been over the phone. And it sure made it easier to sleep, knowing we could stay in touch while he was out and about and growing up so fast.

 

And the point is…

 

I’ve been thinking about that —how the way we communicate has changed over the last 10 years. In the phc world, the communications technology has gotten pretty cool. Ten years ago, faxing was hip. Yes, we could email, but we didn’t really. Computers, used to be 10 times slower and 10 times more expensive. (That’s a change to embrace.) And the point of all this technology is to communicate.

 

In a PHC shop, a few of the communication loops go like this:

 

The owner develops a marketing message.

Marketing reaches customers.

Customers contact the office.

 

The CSR communicates with the customers

 

…and the dispatcher

…who communicates with the plumber

…who communicates with the customer

…who sometimes sends a service survey to the owner.

 

Currently, you may use a series of systems to accomplish all this: Quickbooks, a dispatch program, snail mail, email, phones, fax, hand gestures, shouting, a pencil and Post-its. Ten years ago, you might have been using just shouting at the computer that crashed, often. 

 

Let’s take a closer look at how marketing has changed over the last 10 years. The ONLY time I pick up a phone book is when I am in a hotel room checking out the local plumber’s ads. I haven’t used a phone book to find anything in the last 10 years. I go online. I Google. In 10 years, phone books won’t exist.

 

What didn’t exist 10 years ago, and is turning the world inside out, is Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, YouTube and blogging and texting. If these words are new to you, get to google and start typing. Max and his friends keep up to date on Facebook. Max’s cousin, Kelly — six years younger — is a texter. Last month, she sent and received over 5,000 texts. Not one of those texts included a whole word or more than 10 letters. She is communicating in a whole new way. Even Max and his friends don’t text like kids just a few years younger. If you want to communicate with Kelly, you are well served to text her.

 

If you are going to communicate with your customers, you have to use the tools they are using. I don’t think Kelly or Max has ever picked up a phone book to find a phone number. So the communication loops in marketing need to include email, text and all kinds of social networking sites.

 

I have seen the future

 

I recently saw a demo of an accounting and information system. It works like this:

 

The owner develops a marketing message and posts it on his website. He blogs about the greening of plumbing and gets about 100,000 hits when Huffington Post links to it. The owner also puts a YouTube clip of a particularly fascinating solar installation (involving unplanned bird poop) and the clip is viewed by about as many people who viewed Susan Boyle. This results in 8,345 people opting in on the company website.

 

Marketing reaches customers via email, Facebook and Twitter. The blast includes a clever audio coupon for a free solar shower.

 

Customers contact the office via one of those electronic connections, or by calling the office.

The csr visits with the customer and gathers all contact information and problem details. She enters this into an online version of QuickBooks and posts the pending call on a website based dispatch board.

 

The dispatcher emails the plumber all the contact information. He also emails the customer the arrival time and a picture of the plumber.

 

The plumber finds the customer with a global positioning system (gps). When he wraps up the service call, he swipes the customer’s credit card. The dispatch is converted to an invoice and the payment is deposited into the company checking account.

 

The bookkeeper downloads all the checking and credit card account info into QuickBooks.

 

The customer completes an email survey and submits it to the company site…and to Angie’s List. She also posts it on her blog.

 

And every bit of this can be done with iPhones. Or a smart phone like a Treo or a Blackberry, with a few more technical hiccups. 

 

Could we even imagine that 10 years ago?

 

You need a kid

 

The key to handling this technology? You need a kid. Ask your own kid or grandkid if he or she, or a friend, is interested in becoming your technology officer. A high school or college student is a good candidate. The requirements: a love of computers and a willingness to learn. A student may be looking at job options that include minimum wage at McDonald’s or Blockbuster. You could offer $10 or $12 an hour and a promise to help him learn the ropes. I spend thousands of dollars on computer and internet professionals. I worked with reputable companies who sent a different tech every week, so we would start the learning curve all over again. I have been promised the moon, paid for it…and been disappointed when the computer was glitching and the website was down. Again.

 

Then, I found Jon, a student friend of one of Max’s friends. Jon was honest when we discussed the position. He told me, “I like computers and I know some basic troubleshooting. I really like design and I am taking a website design class. I don’t know anything about networks.”

 

“OK. Here’s a deal,” I offered. “I will start you at $10 an hour and you can learn on my time. Just be clear with me about what you know and don’t know and we’ll figure it out together.”

 

What a great deal this has turned out to be for both of us. His job is super flexible and he works from home most of the time. He only comes to the office if he needs to work on the hardware. He averages about five hours a week. Jon is now a college graduate with a degree in business administration and has a growing business finding and flipping houses. He also does website design and management for a few other clients.

 

The tools change. What’s important is that we communicate with each other. With communication, we gain understanding. Since the beginning of time, untouched by the last ten years, there is a basic human need to connect with one another.

The more things change

 

Every month, Phc News publisher Tom Brown hand writes a thoughtful note on my check. It’s old school technology and a timeless gesture of friendship and appreciation. It’s my favorite part about working for Phc News. Thanks, Tom.

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

 

Need help? Reach Ellen at 417.753.1111 or contact@barebonesbiz.com. You also can join in on the FREE “We love solving problems” Teleseminars at www.barebonesbiz.com.