Garage door industry magazine for garage door dealers, garage door manufacturers, garage door distributors, garage door installers, loading docks, garage door operators and openers, gates, and tools for the door industry.
Issue link: https://idoi.epubxp.com/i/78039
TECHNICAL by Gary Lombard Learning to Communicate As we grow older, and hopefully wiser, we begin to realize things that made no sense before make much more sense now. For me, how we communicate as we carry out our job responsibilities, and how it has changed during the years is one that makes me stop and really think. Growing up in the door industry and watching it develop for forty years, it seems the way we communicate with our customers or internally within a company has lost the quality of being personal. I get a kick out of looking I get a kick out of looking up words in the dictionary when I am writing about a topic to get its true meaning. It is really interesting what up words in the dictionar when I am writing about a topic to get its true meaning. It is really interesting what you fi nd out about individual words. you fi nd out about individual words. For example, the word Communicate is defi ned as "To impart to another or others; to give to another, as a partaker; to bestow or confer for joint possession, generally or always something intangible; as to communicate intelligence, news, opinions, or facts." After reading that defi nition, I ask, do we do much of that anymore? Let me take everyone back a few years. Here's how I remember it being. If you were the scheduler, you made all your phone calls the day before to schedule the installers and service tech- nicians for the next day. For the most part, the day and approximate time was already scheduled when the salesperson turned in the order or when the cus- tomer called to schedule a service call. Still, making a phone call to confi rm has always been a good idea. There was no "leave a message and I will call you back later" since answering machines were not available. schedule the nicians for th part, the day already sched turned in the tomer called Still, making always been a "leave a mess later" since e As a service techni- cian back in the day, you used to carry a pocket full of dimes so you could make phone calls from a ten-cent pay phone (used to be a lot of them around in those days). You either called your offi ce to tell them where you were going next, what issues you had at the previous job, or call ahead to the next customer. If your com- pany was really sophisticated, your truck was equipped with a two-way radio. You could take the microphone, speak your call sign and when the air waves were clear, your of- fi ce would answer back and you could have a good old time speaking back and forth. For the most part, the customer was home when I would get to their residence to do my job. When I got to their home, I knocked on the door and introduced myself and asked them to confi rm what the problem was that they were having with their garage door. Once I completed my work, I com- municated to the customer again and explained what I had done. If they were satisfi ed, it was time to say thank you Continued on page 30 VOLUME 45 ISSUE 4 2012 29