Portable Toilets
Volume 12, Number 31
Issue 579
I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to learn a lot about portable toilets this year. I dislike dealing with portable toilets just as much as many of my clients probably hate working with tax preparers the first time that they come to me. This opportunity—though distasteful—has made me again resolve to try to make the tax preparation process easier on my customers and to make me try harder to make it a more pleasant experience. Every now and then I get to play the actual role of a consumer when I know very little about what I want and who the supplier will be—just like many of my clients do the first time that they encounter me. It’s been an interesting experience locating companies that provide portable toilet service, learning about pricing and then learning about and experiencing service.
I am going to try not to use all of the clever and “smart” analogies and jokes that I have thought of about me being a consumer of portable toilet service and of having portable toilets provided in the first place. This will be hard because there are so many that I have thought of like “it’s hard to soar with the eagles when you are stuck in the pigeon goo,” or “everything hasn’t been coming up roses,” or “I’m just in deep doo doo.” Good. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I will try to write this TaxFax™ as straight-up as possible.
Many people know that I have been restoring an 1811 building—the only entirely riverstone-walled structure in the City of Petersburg. I’ve gone through an amazing process over the last two years and in the not-too-distant future it will be on the City’s Christmas Tour.
I realized that I needed to supply a portable toilet to the jobsite when the workers and subcontractors would leave for extended periods of time. I guess most workers aren’t like me—I’ve learned to control myself during long days of 26 appointments in half hour increments that are rarely interrupted between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. But, alas, other workers aren’t like me—especially ones on a remote jobsite. So, it became necessary after consultation with the general contractor to get a portable toilet on-site to help him control his own workers. Yep, that became my problem. I realized that I was losing hundreds of dollars a week when someone else’s workers would leave the jobsite and that it was standard practice for my general contractor (otherwise a fantastic person) to simply state that “it was just part of construction workers being construction workers.”
It seemed a simple thing—find a company that offers the service of providing portable toilets (and cleaning them out (that’s the REALLY important part)) and order one to be delivered—but it’s much more complicated than that. Pricing varies widely and the ability to service the toilet varies even more. Most disconcerting was the fact that I never did find any company willing to be “happy” in connection with helping me.
I know that the toilet business must be a distasteful and nasty one to be involved in and that you have to learn to deal with customers who wish that they didn’t have to buy the service in the first place, but why can’t the company that I’ve called be solutions-oriented, pleasant and demonstrate a passionate willingness to serve me and solve my problem? That’s what I expect when I play the role of a consumer because that’s what I want all winning companies to do: be solutions-oriented, pleasant and demonstrate a passionate willingness to serve me and solve my problem.
Usually when I have a bad experience as a consumer I get really upset and frustrated that I allowed myself to be placed in that situation. “I should have known better,” I tell myself. I pull myself out of my funk by telling myself that it was a training exercise to learn something about customer service situations and that I must take some example or situation back to my own company to make sure that anything remotely resembling my unpleasant experience isn’t happening with my own service within my own company.
Some toilet companies wouldn’t serve Petersburg. Many wanted payment up-front in a particular form. Most wouldn’t commit to a date and time of delivery and to weekly clean-out service. Some couldn’t handle a Richmond customer with a post office box billing address wanting a toilet delivered to a site in Petersburg with no phone. Some wanted me to provide detailed driving directions rather than working behind the scenes to use their own map. Some companies insisted on my home telephone number. Pricing was confusing. Some companies never, ever called me back after days and several messages—that was the worst thing of all.
I ultimately chose one. I guess that I was just tired of dealing with it and called back the people who were closest.
On the day of delivery, no toilet came. I called the next day—“we are running behind” was the response. “Why didn’t you call?” only made the owner of the business hostile. “We’ll get it there sometime this week” had to be good enough for me. Three days later it arrived. I was finally pleased that someone else’s employees could go to the bathroom for my “$2.25 per day with weekly clean-out service.”
Three weeks later without even the first clean-out, the contractor’s foreman replies to my inquiry of “how’s the toilet?” with a “we stopped using it because it was so disgusting--we are back to leaving the site to go elsewhere.” I’ll leave my “why didn’t you tell me” for another TaxFax™ and keep talking about toilets and not contractors.
I called the toilet company and they said that they had been unable to get to the particular location of the toilet on the site with their service truck’s hose. I then asked, “why did your delivery person put it where he did then?” and I received an “I don’t know” as a response. I asked, “Why didn’t your delivery and service people call each other?” An “I don’t know” came back again, as it would several times before the call would be ended.
So, I have a choice, I can start over or continue dealing with the company that I chose. This is something that all businesses should learn from—NEVER, EVER, EVER let a customer become so disappointed that they think about leaving you in the middle of your service. That is the worst client loss of all.
Give a confident voice to every client interaction. Make sure that the words “I don’t know” are NEVER, EVER, EVER are said to a client. “I’ll find out right away” is the right answer and the “right away” needs to be just that.
Any service provider is the professional deliverer of the service. Assume the consumer knows nothing but still needs to be treated with respect and appreciation. Deliver the service that your company provides efficiently, pleasantly and with a solutions-oriented attitude and you will find that price is the least thing to be worried about.
Professionals—and every company that provides a service to the general public for a fee is a professional in that area of expertise—need to anticipate questions. If you do something for long enough, you can anticipate the Public’s questions. You can learn which ones are coming and learn how to answer them with confidence and a pleasing attitude, you’ll be the leader in your industry.
Call people back. If you are too busy to call people back right away, have a staff member call them back to say that you will be calling back soon.
Don’t ignore hard deadlines and obvious detailed commitments—keep them. If you can’t meet a deadline on-time or early, just call the customer and get an extension.
The best customers worth having ask about price last or don’t ask at all. What’s important is a passionate attitude to serve, a happy attitude in the first place, keeping commitments and deadlines and a willingness to be solutions-oriented.
David B. Robinson, CPA
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