{EP28}: Creating Consistent Customer Service with Heather Rouffe

Heather Rouffe has been in the wedding industry since 2004, and in today's episode, she's sharing a wealth of information about creating consistent customer service from event to event.  From establishing systems to educating every client that walks through her door, Heather leads a talented sales team that is focused on showing up for every customer 100% of the time.  

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www.thewedpreneur.com/intensivemay 

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Transcript

Mary Swaffield: 0:39

Hello everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of the Smart Business for Wedding Pros podcast. I'm your host Mary Swaffield and today I am excited to share an interview with Heather Rouffe from Atlas Event Rental. You guys, Heather has been in the industry for 15 years and let me tell you, her story is extremely inspiring, but before I share today's interview, I wanted to share some really exciting news with you. So as you know, the Wedding Planner Intensive is a group coaching program that I offer to wedding planners of all different levels to help guide them through creating or revising the systems and processes in their business. So systems and processes are so key, especially when you're a wedding planner because it's essentially all of the steps that you need to take to create a consistent and amazing client experience. I typically offer this program twice per year, once in the winter, once in the fall. And right now I'm in week seven out of eight in the current WPI session and I was actually thinking about retiring this program in its current format once this session was complete. However, over the last few weeks I've received several messages from planners who really want to be part of the program and are super bummed that they missed out on the current session. So I am doing something I have never done before and I'm going to open up another WPI for May. You heard me right-we're going to be starting in just a few weeks. I've managed to make some quick changes to my schedule so that I can fit in two sessions a week. So what that means though is that I'm only going to accept 10 wedding planners into the program this time around. Usually I'll take as many as 30 but because of my crazy schedule for May and June, I can only handle two sessions. This program has been life changing for so many planners and I'm not just saying that it is the feedback that I get all the time from planners of all levels, from all over the world who take this program. So if you've been thinking about signing up, this is your chance. We're going to be starting the second week of May and going right to the end of June. Sessions are 90 minutes a week live with yours truly. And just so you guys know, this is the only program that I offer that includes face to face time with me. So I love it. It is so fun. I love hanging out with some of the most amazing wedding planners from all over the world every single week. So if you want to learn more about the wedding planner intensive or WPI as I like to call it, or if you're just ready, you're just ready to make the commitment to taking your wedding planning business to the next level. You can head to thewedpreneur.com/intensivemay so registration is going to close May 3rd or when all 10 of those spots are snatched up. So you do not want to wait or you could lose your chance to be part of this amazing experience. So once again, that's the thewedpreneur.com/intensivemay. I will link to it in the show notes as well so that you can absolutely find it and get yourself into one of those 10 spots. Okay, friends, let's talk about our guest today. Armed with event experience in the nonprofit sector and the ability to think creatively on her feed, Heather joined the family owned Atlas Event Rental in 2004 and has since served as an integral member of the award winning team as director of sales and partner. Heather enjoys bringing clients into Atlas' showroom for design sessions where she's an expert at drawing out their vision and style outside of the showroom. Heather is an up and coming educator providing insight into the latest design, color and rental trends. Atlas Event Rental has enjoyed features with Brides, BizBash, Inside Weddings, Style Me Pretty and InStyle among others. Recently Atlas was honored as one of the top 30 rental companies by Special Events Magazine. When she is not making couples dreams come true, she spends as much time as possible with her children, Ella and Harrison and tries to squeeze in time for the gym, yoga or a massage or one of her favorite pastimes, shopping. Okay, you guys. Heather brings such a wealth of experience in sales and educating clients and creating that unforgettable client experience that we all strive for. She shares so much in this interview. I can't wait for you to hear it. So without further ado, let's go to the interview. Hi Heather. Thank you so much for joining me on the Smart Business for Wedding Pros podcast today.

Heather Rouffe: 5:12

Hi, thank you for having me.

Mary Swaffield: 5:14

Well, I am excited to have you on the show today, but before we get started as is tradition on the show, I'd like to give you the opportunity to share your story with my listeners. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in the wedding industry?

Heather Rouffe: 5:31

Sure. So currently I'm the director of sales and also a managing partner at Atlas Event Rental. We're a full service event rental company located in south Florida. I've been with the company for 15 years. It'll actually be my 15th year come June. So it's super exciting and I can't believe it's been that long.

Mary Swaffield: 5:50

Wow, congratulations.

Heather Rouffe: 5:52

Thank you. So everyone always asks, how did you get started and how are you here? So the funny story is is in high school I worked at my local party store, similar to like a party city where we used paper plates and blew up balloons and it was a family owned business. So I really kind of ran the show when the owners weren't there and everyone would always joke, you get so excited about paper plates and I'd be walking up and down the aisles with the clients, whether it was a birthday or barbecue or father's day and helping them choose just really unique patterns on plates and cups and it was just really fun. And who would have ever known that now I'm selling plates and renting plates. So it's kind of funny how it came full circle. Um, went to college, never even thought about going to the event industry. Graduated College, still always had a passion for events. I ended up getting a paid internship for the United way down here in south Florida. Did that kind of as a paid internship. Saw that I loved events but really wanted to get into more of like the corporate and social aspect rather than nonprofit. And after getting my feet wet and dabbling in a few other things just to see what was out there, a very, very random way of meeting my now partners when I went in to sell them to be in an ad for a preferred vendor book. And long story short, after kind of working my way up and starting just by answering phones, 15 years later, here I am with the same company, loving what I do.

Mary Swaffield: 7:31

That's amazing. Isn't it funny how the universe can, you know, throw opportunities our way and we don't even know it's happening.

Heather Rouffe: 7:38

Yeah. It's really, when I think back to it when I tell the story, people laugh all the time from like blowing balloons and paper plates and how I'm just doing the real plate. So yeah, it's kind of like you were, I was always meant to be doing this I guess. And it's really funny how that happens.

Mary Swaffield: 7:53

I love that. Well today we're going to talk about creating a consistent customer experience from event to event. And I have to tell you, I love this topic because as my listeners know, I'm very passionate about the customer experience and putting in the systems to make it possible. So can you tell me why you think it's important to have a consistent experience from one event to the next?

Heather Rouffe: 8:19

Yes. This is, and I'm so glad we're talking about this because it is so important, especially in this world that we're living in, where every single day there's so much competition, especially in the event industry and without having that continuity of your service and your quality, um, you lose clients and it gives people a reason to go elsewhere. You know, there's a lot of competition nowadays. There's always going to be someone less expensive. There might be someone who's more aggressive, who's calling you the day in and day out. They might have a product that's newer that maybe you didn't get in yet. Maybe it's not our budget and we're getting it in next season. So you always have to give a client a reason to come back to you. And this is why that customer service and the continuity of that from event to event interaction to interaction is so important and what we believe is why we've been around for 35 years and continuing to grow even though we're not the least expensive rental company in the market. Okay.

Mary Swaffield: 9:21

Hmm. I love that. And you know, we, this is one of those, um, problems in the wedding industry that we discussed over and over and over, which is, you know, how do we get couples to stop buying on price alone? What are your thoughts on that?

Heather Rouffe: 9:39

Oh, one of my favorite things to talk about it is education, education and education. Um, it's so enticing to only go by price, but every single day would I train my sales staff. It's our job to educate. Years ago we were able just to take the order, send it over, you get a deposit a few minutes later, no longer is that the case? It takes a lot more work, a lot more effort, and a lot more educating. I have to educate the client why my chair might be a dollar more and what kind of labor we put into it versus a competitor. I have to educate you on what a damage waiver is. I is to educate you on my invoice has a late night pickup fee because I know that then you were acquired at midnight, picked up what the other company that you have a quote from. They didn't know that they don't work there, so their delivery fee is half the price. Now it's going to come back and hit you later once you give them those details. But because we're so educated and well versed in our venues, working closely with our planners, we try to be as proactive as possible to give you the price up front so there's no surprises and all of that comes with education and we need to educate you on our quality, on our service a lot longer than what we used to do years ago. But again, it's a change of times. But with that right education, we still find that people are seeking that amazing service and amazing quality or price. You're always going to lose a few people and, and you know, you're not going to be the right match for everyone. And that is okay. But when you educate and take the time, then you usually end up winning the clients business.

Mary Swaffield: 11:26

I like that. So what I'm hearing is, and I think that people know this, but I don't know that people know that it requires a lot of effort necessarily, is that you have to be real clear on what sets you apart from your competitors.

Heather Rouffe: 11:42

You have to be so clear. Um, you know, it's funny, I laugh all the time when I give tours and I love having people come in and actually taking them through the, of what it takes to deliver a Shibori chair from your warehouse to their wedding. And when you educated and explain it to them, I even have people say, oh my God, I can't believe how cheap that cherries, whereas on the phone that Tara was so expensive, right? So it is, you have to work so much harder to get a bit, you have to work so much harder to close the deal. So much harder to keep that client happy and always know what they're looking for and what's important to them and provide that service. But that education is so, so, so, so important in today's that you,

Mary Swaffield: 12:30

yeah, I fully agree with that. And one of the things that I hear people have a challenge with, I think that most wedding professionals know because they've heard it on 8 million podcasts and read all the blogs about it. They know that they need to know what sets them apart. But I think some people probably just lack experience or confidence in how to deliver that information, like how to talk about it. Do you find that that's the case?

Heather Rouffe: 12:55

I do. Um, because of my role as the director of sales, I'm constantly training my sales staff and some are more aggressive, some are new out of college without heavy sales experience. Some are amazing closers, but they just have a hard time getting on the phone and being aggressive and asking those questions. So yeah, it's not easy to come out to ask a client, what is it that makes you come back? What are you looking for in a rental company? I know are more expensive, but I know that I could better serve you and your clients. So those are tough questions. I mean, they're not easy and that just comes with training. We do a lot of role playing. I'll sit with my girls at the, in the showroom, they'll listen to me, I'll listen to them, we'll do practice phone calls. They'll, they'll practice with each other. And it's amazing that when they finally do it and they built up that confidence, you know, then it's like a home run. Oh Wow. That was amazing. Look at the outcome. I got this now. But usually getting over that, you know, that first hump of getting there, it's tough asking the hard questions, you know, it's definitely not easy.

Mary Swaffield: 14:00

[inaudible] I find one of the courses that I offer is called the pricing lab and one of the exercises that I have people do is that role playing. Right. I think we have to remember that we have to practice this conversation, especially if it's a conversation that doesn't come really easily for us. And I get everybody to practice writing down the common objections that they get. And that price objection of course is almost always the number one. But I think that if you can anticipate what sort of the pain point that couples have when they come to you and they're like, no, I don't want to work with you and you, you really learned why that is, then you can practice your responses. Right. And it sounds like that's what you do with your sales team, which is fantastic.

Heather Rouffe: 14:44

Absolutely. And again, it's like you said, it's that education is so important because a lot of the brides, right, what are they non there on Facebook groups or on Instagram? They're texting with their friends. A lot of them are millennials. Everything's online and they're reading blogs. There's listening to blogs and a lot of the information is great, but we all know, you know you have one friend that says, oh don't go there, it's too expensive. Oh my God. They were priced out of the water. Well maybe your friend wants it something totally different. Right? So it's our job to kind of bring it back and educate them. And then the other portion of it is really learning what their needs are. You know, sometimes someone will bring us a picture and say, I want this. Well we all know there's, you know, reality versus like, you know what the dream is and it's our job to show them that they could still have that dream, but maybe they're creating their dream vision by adding just a Napkin in a glass versus an$80 Lynn in that might not be in their budget. So yes, those questions and roleplaying and asking, why didn't you go with us? I trained my girls that when someone calls and says, sorry, I didn't go with you there to ask, why don't just say, okay. When someone emails us back and said, sorry, I went elsewhere, the first thing we ask is, can I please ask why? And if we don't hear what those objections are, we'll never be able to overcome them. And you know, learn how to train. The girls better.

Mary Swaffield: 16:05

Yeah, I like that. And what you said about really understanding what your couples want, I think that that's really key as well because if we don't take the time to get to know what they want beyond just what's in their inquiry email, if we're not digging deep to really understand what their priorities are and what those pain points are, then we're not able to really adapt the way that we promote and present our business. Right. So one of the, one of the things I see all the time is if I'm, I think sometimes it's hard for us to put our ourselves in the place of the uneducated couple when it comes to the wedding industry because we're in it every day, right? We're in it all the time. We don't even know what we don't know anymore. And so when a couple comes to us, they don't have all of that background knowledge in their head the way we do. And when you put yourself in that place and they're going to rental company A's website and rental company B's website and all they see as a differentiating factor is price. Then that's the only thing they know how to compare on. Right?

Heather Rouffe: 17:11

Absolutely. In all day. I mean, the joke is when someone new starts are brands and colors pink and at every desk by the pink calculator, because I tell them that the calculator is going to be there, new best friend all day, people are going to send us, oh, they're cheaper, they're cheaper. And I say, get the proposals because you need to educate them on how we're not so expensive. Half the time you're not comparing apples to apples. It's not fair for our quotes higher. But you asked us for the crystal glassware versus getting a everyday stemware. So they're constantly comparing and we're constantly adding up numbers and comparing an outdoor dance floor that's less expensive than the brand new wood round dance floor. So exactly like you said, it's to them they don't know a dancer is a dancer right now. To us though, when we're losing that contract, we know what the difference of the dance floor is. We know why our contract is more, and it's our job just to fight for it and say, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, whoa. You're not comparing apples to apples now allow me to give you what the other company was getting look at that were the same price for a little less expensive. But you know, look, you can now have the company that has amazing service and quality and we're familiar with the venue for the same price.

Mary Swaffield: 18:25

Uh, yes. Yes, exactly. So you had mentioned really briefly in one of your responses that sometimes it's just not the right client. So how do you go about finding those right clients for your business?

Heather Rouffe: 18:42

So two, why us? You know, our motto is in the beginning that were aligned for everyone. When someone calls, they might think right off the bat, oh you're too high end, they come into a beautiful showroom, I can't afford you. And it's our job to learn all about them because I want to be everyone's client. I think where we have to differing differentiate when we're not their client is when someone just after all the educating we do, they just don't understand why our prices are our prices. They just don't understand why we have certain policies in place like damage waivers. Like when you could change your orders, how our delivery fees work. Again, we have a saying, you can say answer answered every wedding. We know that we're not going to be the right fit for everyone. I would say that that doesn't happen that often, but again, it's our job as a sales team to really identified when someone appreciates and understands what we do. And sometimes in the beginning they don't see it, but it takes them go into work for a competitor who doesn't provide the same service, did it, didn't show up, provided inadequate quality for them to come back and say, you know what, I understand your message. I see what you mean and I'll pay your prices. So it seems to staying how it all works. Um, you know, there's always a few in the bunch. Like I said, that we'll just never be the right fit and that's okay. There's a flavor for everyone. There's a company for everyone, but it all comes down to exactly what we're talking about, that education. And usually when they see, when they're getting something for their value, it goes a little bit for, yeah,

Mary Swaffield: 20:18

it really is all about the value. Right. You know, one of my favorite quotes ever, and I was just saying this to, uh, my partner Jewel's who he is a contractor, so he does massive home renovations and he was experiencing some of the challenges of his clients because people, just so you know, this happens in every industry, right? So he was getting pushed back from a very high end client who was really trying to nickel and dime him on every single thing that he was doing. And I remembered this quote, which is, if you think that my professional services are expensive, wait until you see how expensive it is to work with an amateur. And that I love that. I remind myself of that all the time.

Heather Rouffe: 20:59

And we say that, I mean, it's so funny, we, we have similar clothes that deliver the same message. Yeah. I mean, it's so easy to get enticed by price, right? Especially when you're planning a wedding. I mean, it's a lot of money. You know, whether you're spending 20,000 to 100 mean that's a lot of someone's hard earned money and I get it. So when you're looking at a line item or you're comparing 5,000 versus 5,500 or 3000 versus 4,000 it's I get how easy it could be to make a decision on price. But like you said, fixing the price sometimes is a lot harder than making that initial investment and having a, you know, an amazing experience.

Mary Swaffield: 21:37

Absolutely. So the first part that we talked about is knowing what sets you apart and how to talk about it. And then I guess the next step in that process is when you, when you get a sales team or if it's just yourself, who's getting up there and talking about why you are the right choice and what value you provide for the money. I guess the next step is to make sure that you're not over promising and under delivering. So what steps do you and your team have in place to make sure that now that you've got the sale and they've put their trust in you, how do you make sure that you're providing the right level of service from client to client? Sure, sure or so

Heather Rouffe: 22:18

it's our job to really understand the client, right? Understand what venue they're at, understand how long the client has been in the business, are they working the venue where we have a current relationship with, and then from there we really determined what kind of needs that client has. Many times our delivery guys go and they make the delivery. We ask 9 million questions in ahead of time on the ticket to make sure that our drivers know who to call, who to tax, what ballroom to go to, what obstacles there are. If there's a set up, do we have a floor plan? So we do that. All of that pre delivery. It's also my sales girls to determine, okay, does this client need an onsite manager? Do they need an onsite logistics coordinator? Do they need someone kind of bigger than our delivery teams who really make sure that the delivery goes smooth. Maybe it's just logistically challenging and it would just speak better to have kind of a higher up to oversee it. Or is it a new high profile client that we think from the sales side it would really be beneficial for us to go schmooze with, right? Because we all know how far that goes in that customer service. So once our sales team kind of gathers the needs, then they reach out to me to say, I think we should send Xyz, did this job. I really think it would be beneficial if we sent you on this job. I think it'd be beneficial if we send our ops manager on this job really to make sure that have the perfect team at every job. And we're really lucky and we spend a lot of time training our crew. So again, the nice part is we could send the drivers and have confidence that we know that the client's going to have an amazing experience. But there's also that responsibility on the client side to make sure that you're giving me the proper information. So when we're asking all these questions, don't get annoyed with us. Right? Cause sometimes it's like you've already been there. Well maybe Joe has been there, but the new driver maybe hasn't been there. So we always ask the questions just to ensure for a smooth delivery, a smooth outcome, an overall smooth client experience. And then from there it's usually pretty successful. So we're really trying to, you know, balance out just who we sinned and why.

Mary Swaffield: 24:31

That's great. You know, it's so funny as a wedding planner for the last 11 years, often when we're working with our wedding management clients who of course were not planning their entire wedding so many times when we get the information back from them, when it comes to their rentals, they're always like, oh, we decided not to have all of the chairs delivered. My brother's gonna pick them up. And then my mother in law is going to set up 300 Shavera chairs on her own and an hour. And it's my favorite thing when I see this, I'm always like, okay, we need to have a conversation this inevitably I'm like, okay, why are you not having the rental company just delivering these and maybe even set them up for you and you know, they're always like, oh well it was like an extra$400 or something or whatever. And I'm always like, seriously, you need to think. Let me walk this. Let me walk you through this a little bit. Let me walk you through what 300 Jabari chairs it looks like in terms of size for delivery and that you all have to, you know, take the covers off of every single one and then you have to put the pad on every single chair

Heather Rouffe: 25:29

always like, oh, I didn't know. Well. And again, like right. Hence the education and that's for like my girls, I'm like, wait, you have to tell the mother of the bride that no, you don't want to be sweating in sunny south Florida putting linens on that. It's really worth the$30 go get your hair and makeup done. And it's, you know, right. I laugh because we hear it all. I'm going to pick up the items to save on a delivery and what happens, they come in the vehicles not big enough and then they're turning around and having to go spend hundreds of dollars on a u haul because it's the middle of Saturday when we're busy and their events starts in two hours. Right? Yeah. So again, it's our job to probe and question and be aggressive. What that information, because I tell my girls we know it best, right? No one else knows rentals. If this is your first time having an event, this is foreign to you. So what becomes what you said in the beginning, it'll become second nature to us. It's, it's foreign to them. So sure I can pick up linens and put them on myself. Well, who's going to be getting ready? You know, for the wedding, your bridesmaids meets their hair and makeup done. Your, your groomsmen, you want him sweating, setting up chairs on the beach. I mean, so yeah, so we laugh all the time but it just comes back again. That education is so important and my sales team to be confident in what they're telling you. So they tell you exactly that like no, no, no, we're not letting you set up the chairs. The$300 is worth every dime and then they're like, none of that. I was like, you are right. And they call us after saying, I'm so happy you told me that. Yes,

Mary Swaffield: 26:59

those are the best calls sometimes. Do you, do you find that it's easier now? So you've been in the industry obviously a long time. Do you find it easier to educate couples now with all of the social media that we have available to us or, or not? Like, do you ever do like live videos trying to educate clients are, or how are you maximizing that?

Heather Rouffe: 27:19

So we haven't really focused on this specific education yet. What we focused on is more of the technologically driven stuff. So on our website we have an automatic price quote system. So it's again kind of catering to like those millennials and just even, you know, a working mom who can't get to her event till 11 o'clock at night when you put the kids to bed, right? So you don't have all day maybe to sit on the phone with your rental company wrap and do all of this. So you could go on our our website, enter a price quote, and you get immediate pricing, which is great. It's that instant gratification. Now you have some kind of idea of what the ballpark is. Then we have a online live chat that answer's probably about 12 hours a day. So again, that instant gratification[inaudible]. Then we have a, we're about a week away from launching a table top alive like 3d tabletop component where you could see what your table could look like. You could choose your linen, your dishes, your flatware, your glassware, and kind of get a sneak peek of what it'll look like. Amazing. Again, to those we didn't know the people who worked on his tie. And how often is it that the brides in New York, the moms in Palm Beach, the inlaws are in San Francisco. So it's a really great way for everyone to email each other the vision. And what do you think? The other thing we did start doing is when someone does call in for a price quote or an appointment, the first thing we say is would you like to visit one of our multiple showrooms or would you like us to do a facetime call? Again, respecting everyone's time and how busy they are. And people are like, oh, I just had a baby three weeks ago. You could do that. Absolutely. You know, stay home. I'll facetime you. We could play in the showroom just like you were there. Tell me what you like, don't like. I'll show you all the mix and Max out mix and match the options and we'll achieve the same, you know, the same outcome as if you were to come in. So we've kind of focused more on the technology aspect. We had a lot of business driven to our website. The next aspect and you know for doing um, you know, things like answering these questions is that live specific education because we are finding it's very important but up until now we really focused on the technology side of things.

Mary Swaffield: 29:40

You, what I love about what

Heather Rouffe: 29:42

you're saying is you have gotten really clear about the way people are shopping, right? Like you'd done buyer psychology, which is something I nerd out about all the time. You've gotten really clear about it and you've tried to make it as easy as possible for people to do business with you. And this is something that I am constantly trying to teach people is that in the industry we have a tendency to put up barriers to make it harder for people to do business with us. Like, please fill out this, you know, five page questionnaire before I will even respond to you. Whereas in your case, you have put all the tools in place so that it is easy for people to do business with you. I love that. Okay. I mean you have to write in this day and age, we all want easy, right? We're all on our phones, instant gratification. We're getting our groceries delivered. No one has the time anymore. I mean we have one component of our kind of checkout payment process because we're rentals and neat people to be liable. It's probably right now our oldest portion of what we're trying to tweak and I could assure you within the next two months we will have that change. But even that sometimes drives me crazy because I understand it could be a challenge and and frustrating and I wouldn't want that as a consumer if I was dealing with a rental company or anyone else I deal with. So we always try to look at it from the client's perspective. Is this easy? Is it fast? Can I nail you swatches? Can I set up a showroom table? And take a picture and send it to you. Anything that we have to do to make the sale as easy as possible is what we're about. In fact, we just hired one person to solely man hour online chats because we get just how much business coming in through our website that people put in price quotes, that it became too much for our regular girls that handle the everday calls. So we hired one person to specifically follow up with those clients and make sure that they're taken care of. Yep.

Mary Swaffield: 31:43

That's amazing. It's so funny that you say that because I mean, I'm a business owner and I tried to make my business easy for people to do business with all the time, but I don't even realize how deeply psychologically ingrained that is with inside of me until I experienced it myself. For as an example, just this week, I was, I hired a photographer to take photos at a corporate event and uh, he sent me a quote and I was like, Yep, 100% let's go forward. And then he sent me an invoice and as I'm reading this invoice, I'm looking for an option to pay online. Like I'm looking for the button that will be like take me to my paypal or my credit card and I couldn't find it. So I emailed him back and I said, I think there's something wrong with the invoice you sent me. I don't see a payment option. And he was like, Oh, you have to call in with your credit card or you have to print this credit card authorization form and fill it out by hand and then scan it back to me. And I was like, oh, that sounds like so much work. All I want to do is press a button and be able to give you money. Right. So it really is true that what people are looking for now are, you know, the quickest, easiest, fastest way to get from point a to point B.

Heather Rouffe: 32:57

Yeah. In our, I will talk probably within 60 days on our website and it's actually funny, it's called pay now. We are installing a pay now because I know how important that is. So there will be a pay now just to get your invoice paid, your deposit paid, and you never even have to speak with us if you don't want to.

Mary Swaffield: 33:15

Amazing. Amazing. So what are some of the steps that you take to make sure that your team has that consistent experience? Do you guys have like an operations manual or training manuals? You put it in paper or is that all just through training?

Heather Rouffe: 33:30

So we do have, um, we have a manual on, it takes more of an employee manual and a training manual. Um, in this industry we all know how many grays there are, right? It's, I always say that if someone could create a training manual for this industry, Kudos to them, especially dealing with rentals. Um, so a lot of the training that we do it, the live training, so from what a new driver starts, they are assigned and pair it up with eight of the top drivers. So they learn, you know, all of the best practices and all of the best ways. Then they sit with our sales team so they understand what we hear in Billy, tell the clients, and we really believe that everyone in our company needs to understand and learn all aspects of the company because we all hold such a crucial job, right? The person who's making sure there's old lipstick on the glasses, I mean that's huge. If the one new client gets lipstick on their glasses, they didn't make never rent from us again. So we feel he tried to instill that everyone is a team. Everyone is equally as important. Some of us just are more on the front end, like our sales team and the drivers where some is our on our backend. But without every single person of this intricate team, we wouldn't be able to deliver and provide the service that we provide. We're not going to be perfect. Every scenario might be different. Maybe one day the driver got hit with 10 steps and we had no idea and they only had one driver and all we could do is learn from it, right? You can't really change what the client didn't tell us. But what we do is we have ops meetings daily. We have sales meetings on a regular basis and we're constantly in communication because we always say we can't fix what happened and belief with learn from it. And as long as we're constantly learning from it, then it a little lab that clients have a better experience and we have a process. When there is a mistake, when a client wasn't happy, it comes to me and we call the client and obviously try to schmooze them over. And again, I find nine out of 10 times the client understands, you know, we're all human and the best thing you could do is take ownership. You know, I'm very sorry this happened. This is why. Let me tell you that because of that, what we implemented, and I could assure you that your next experience will be better. I mean, we're not perfect, right? I mean, no one's perfect, especially in rentals, right? I need, we try and get the chair as clean as possible. We're reusing linens were making sure they don't shrink on your, a lot of human error that could go into it. We're not run by robots. Our company is all pretty manual. Um, so it's just always important than everyone on your team knows what you stand for. And I think for us that's what's most important. The drivers know that they have a uniform because our branding and our image is very important to us. When somebody comes into the showroom we stands up, we agreed are applying for with um, often Watham coffee. They get a printed atlas coaster with a little tidbit on it. And again, it's just from the front to end that everyone knows how important our service and our branding is. And as long as everyone understands that, we find it goes a long way. So when we questioned them to say, this is how you knew me to do things in, this is why it's clear, because they know what the company's expectations are and they know what we expect the end user to feel and see when they use atlas as a company.

Mary Swaffield: 36:54

Oh, okay. I love that. I'm going to unpack that a little bit because the key thing I want people to take away from what you just said is that you are training your team and focusing so much on the experience they have with your brand from the very beginning until the very end. And I think that often if we keep that in mind as we're creating these systems and processes in our business, if we're constantly putting it through the filter of that end user or a couple or a client and trying to maintain that high level of experience through every touch point, it's really hard to go wrong. So I love that. The second thing I wanted to mention, and I just want to say I love that you've acknowledged there is no amount of training in this industry that could prepare you for every eventuality. It's just impossible. It doesn't matter how long I've been doing this. I'm always at every event. I'm like, well definitely didn't see that one coming. That's the new one to me. And you learn and you become better for it. Right? Absolutely. So you mentioned really briefly that you follow up with couples that are unhappy. What do you have a process for following up with all of your clients afterwards? Like how do you measure the success of the service that you're providing? Okay,

Heather Rouffe: 38:08

Yep. So what we do is after every invoice goes out, our system generates a online survey. Most of them, again, it's busy at season, right? I would say most of them just kind of write us three, you know, however many stars. Some will give 2 cents of how amazing their salesperson, how amazing their driver was. So that's one way because we want the feedback. I want to know the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the only way that we could get. So everyone gets followed up with an email survey that gets linked to our Google review. So that's step one. Um, step two is every Monday, part of my sales girls agenda on Monday is following up with clients. Sometimes they have time to follow up with all of them. Sometimes they don't, but they know that they have to take, depending on how many orders they have to take a minimum of three to five clients and follow up with them from the weekend. It could be a phone call, it could be an email, it could be a text, it could be a handwritten note, but it has to be a mixture of all of those. I always say they know how the client likes to be communicated because they'd been working with them. So just choose the way that the client likes that communication and follow up with them. Usually from there the clients will spill the beans, right? They'll tell you the good, the bad, the ugly, everything was amazing. Or you know what, I can't believe you send something out like this. So we hear it all. I would say we usually hear a lot of positive, um, more than sometimes I'm surprised because we all have clients thought what they were doing and go out of their way to compliment our drivers, our sales team and lobby and tell you when I get those emails, I stop and thank them for taking time out of their day because it makes our employees feel so good. Right? We always hear the bad. It's so rare that we hear the good. So when we do here, how amazing our employees are, it's great for everyone. It's great. It makes me feel good that my team is representing us well. It makes the employee feel good of what we're doing and it just keeps the overall morale up and it makes people work harder. We just implemented, um, actually it's kind of a secret they'll know in a week, but we're implementing a board in our lunch room called atlas applause. And every time the sales girls gets a compliment, we're going to print it out, hang it on the board, and they get a$10 Starbucks gift card. Um, we do, um, an employee of the month for more of the ops team and our drivers and our sewing department and our dishware department. So we're always trying to acknowledge our employees. We try to send out emails of women. The client had a great experience and sometimes it's not. Also, it's not even only from the client. Let's say I'm on the dock and I just saw a client get amazing who service from our customer pickup employee. I will write out a company to email thanking James stating what he did to use it as a learning opportunity for all of the other from employees and thank him for really doing an amazing job and you know, allowing our clients to continuing having that, that experience.

Mary Swaffield: 41:06

That's so great. I think that that's really important as well. I know that a lot of us in the industry work in smaller teams of just a handful. Um, there are of course venues and rental companies that have larger organizations, but it's, I think sometimes we get so stuck on the negative review and the negative feedback that we forget how important it is to share that positive feedback. So I love what you're doing and don't worry about your secret cause we won't release this for at least two weeks at a time. Um, and I also want to say for those of you who are out there who work with rental companies, I hope that this inspires you to take the time to acknowledge the hard work that working with your rental company that the rental company provides. Because I'll tell you a story about how, first of all, it's so important that relationship for wedding planners and other wedding professionals, that relationship with your, with your rental company is so critical. I once did a wedding that was, uh, I want to say almost four hours away from the city. And as I was there and I'm going through and I'm unpacking all the rentals and I realized we were short 30 charger plates, very high end wedding. I was panicking because there's literally no rental company within like three hours of where I am. And I was so disappointed that my rental company did this to me. So I called them and I was like, Hey, you know, I'm short 30 charger plates and this is a really major wedding. You know, we spent a lot of money with you guys. I don't know what to do. And the owner called me back within five minutes and said, one of our sales girls is in their car right now. They have 30 charger plates. They'll be there before the wedding starts. I promise you. And sure enough, they showed up like she drove four hours to bring me 30 charger plates just to make sure that I looked good and that, you know, they, they were able to provide on the promise that they gave to us. I was blown away. And that level of service to me made me loyal to them for so many years. Right. Like, I just knew that even if, because like you said, nobody's perfect, people make mistakes and I completely get that. But the fact that they were able to rectify it and do everything possible to make it okay, that was amazing to me. And so when that happens, I was, I went into their showroom afterwards, a few days after the wedding and made sure that they all knew how, how appreciative I was that they took that extra step to, you know, fix their mistake that anybody could have made. Um, it could have even have been me. I mean we're, we're human too. Sometimes we put the wrong numbers in the orders, right? So I, you know, to everybody listening who gets to work with a rental company, it is a difficult, difficult business. It is not easy. I have seen behind the scenes enough to know like, holy, the logistics are courageous, Lazy. Um, so make sure that you give your rental company a little love in the coming weeks. That's, that's my request for everybody listening.

Heather Rouffe: 44:08

And I'm so, I mean it's so funny cause we could have a whole nother call write on like what we've done to, to save our client. I mean I should have wrote a book about that, but um, still time for that reason. We, I'm so Wiki are 24 set in and people are like, well what do you mean? I say where 24 seven Oh, so I could call like at two in the morning. You Short Ken. We are 24 seven so, and why are we 24 seven because events don't happen only at one time. Right. There could be set ups in the middle of the night, but we um, we are 24, seven we have hired a phone service who answers the calls immediately and then it automatically goes to an employee. We have who's on first, second, third. And it just keeps ringing until someone answers. So we never ever, ever lose a call so no one can ever say to us, I tried calling you to fix it and know I answered. We know I actually had that happen and we ended up finding out that they called a different company that they had saved in their phone because I said it's impossible. You didn't call us. We get a log of who calls. So I'm really glad you shared that story. And yes, I mean, you know, there are a lot of us that, it doesn't matter if it's family time, a Sunday night or Sunday morning, a Saturday, we call it the witching hour from Saturday between three to six when everyone's arriving, it's set up. We just were all stand by our phones. Here it goes. And um, we have emergency drivers extra on a Saturday because we know we're going to have to start fielding them out. I forgot the plates. I had a client last week that forgot to add salad plates. I had a client call Sunday who actually doesn't even use us. And another company failed to deliver their chivalry chairs. The wedding was starting in four hours and we got some chairs there in two hours for the wedding. So yeah, it's, you must really love what you do. I do. Would we really be doing this for 15 years? Right? If you look right here as later, I mean if you, yeah, no, I mean you have to, you have to absolutely love this because it, I mean, just, you know, like use a planner becomes your life. I mean, it's, you're at work, you come home, you're with the kids, you're back on the computer, your phone rings right at all hours of the night. But I'm very lucky that I found something and that I love to do and yes, I love every aspect of it. That's fantastic. Heather, before I let you go, if you could leave our audience with one piece of advice today, what would it be? So my last piece of advice, um, would kind of sum up what you said. Allow us to be a part of you and what you do. So many people don't even realize what services we can provide. You might use us through your decor company. Maybe you've used those through the venue that you're, that you're having a wedding at. Come visit us. Allow us to give you a tour. Allow us to match up with the right sales person. We could offer you our design skill. We could be such a long lasting partner and I think so many times is a rental company. I always get mad that we get shafted, right? Because it uh, uh, Bri, she needs a DJ, she needs a florist, she needs a photographer, she needs a cake. But you never hear anyone say, I need a rental company because you can get rentals to other vendors but you know what, you need us and allow us to be a part of it. And we're not looking to take away the rental experience from any of your other vendors. We're just another piece of the Pie. Get to know your rental company. Learn what capabilities they have. I custom make linens for clients. I could bring in new products. If you don't ask, you won't know and I won't be able to have that opportunity. But will leak. Get to know us, get to know who, who works behind the company, get to know the values, visit them, learn whether operation is, and I could assure you that it'll take you farther as a vendor when you allow the rental company to become your friends.

Mary Swaffield: 48:09

I hundred percent agree with that. This has been so fantastic. Heather, where can our listeners find you online?

Heather Rouffe: 48:16

Okay, so our website is amazing. We just recently revamped it. That website is www.atlaseventrental.com even in rental or singular. We also are huge on social media more so Instagram right now at Alison, but rental, we have a generic hello at atlas on our website and I'm always here to help and I love mentoring and offering my journey and my story stuff and whenever it needs to reach out. And you could reach me via email at Heather at atlas event, rental.com and again even and rental or both singular.

Mary Swaffield: 48:59

That's fantastic. And I will link to all of that on our show notes so that if our listeners want to reach out to you, they know how to do so. Thank you so much for your time today. Heather.

Heather Rouffe: 49:10

Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day. You too.

Mary Swaffield: 49:14

Well my friends, I promise you that she was a wealth of knowledge and boy did she deliver. I was taking notes like crazy during this interview and the one thing that really struck me the most was how incredibly passionate she is about what she does. I love her energy and how excited and proud she was when she talks about her team and I think we could all learn something from Heather. She is a powerhouse, no doubt about Ed. That's a wrap for today, my friends, but before I go, I wanted to invite you all to subscribe to this podcast. If you haven't already. It is the best way to ensure that you don't miss an episode and let me tell you, we have got some incredible episodes coming your way in the coming weeks. Thank you so much for being here today and we will see you next week.

Speaker 2: 50:02

Thank you so much for joining me for this week's episode of the West Printer podcast. I'm so incredibly grateful to all of my listeners and would like to take a moment to invite you to keep the conversation going. Head on over to my free online community and the web,[inaudible] dot com forward slash join if you enjoyed this episode, help us spread the word by leaving us an honest review on iTunes. I appreciate each and every one of you and welcome your and till next

Speaker 4: 50:28

time.