RM Online - Customer training is time well-spent everybody wins when you do it right

Whoa! Shouldn't that be employee training? But no, that's right: custom-ers need training, too. You have to train customers to use the equipment the way it was designed to be used, and safely. The client will be happier, the rental person will have earned the client's trust and the whole rental transaction will be a success. If customers don't know how to start or operate the rented product, how can they possibly accomplish what they want to do? This is not simply a statement of the obvious; it is the reality of the rental business.

We have succeeded only after the customer has succeeded. Renting the equipment (getting it out on rental), is only half the battle, and whether it's a party or a tool rental makes little difference. The whole event must accomplish what the client set out to do in the beginning or in the long run, no one has won.

Of course, we have to ensure that customers' expectations are realistic, and we have a responsibility to make sure we don't oversell. No repair or construction job I ever started at home was ever finished in the time frame I thought it would be, no matter how detailed I made the plan. Customers can't predict the time required any better. We have a rule in our company: estimate the time or cost that of a job a little bit on the high side. That way customers are impressed that they rented a great tool and managed to do the task in less time than the guy at the rental center said it would take. And it cost less, too! I like to have them walk out of the store thinking they're the best Do-It-Yourselfer on the block. There's nothing wrong with letting the customer think that.

We ask our customers to show ID at every rental, even if we know them. The reason, apart from checking ID, is to continually update addresses and other details. That saves money on customer mailings that would otherwise go to waste. Training the customer without his knowing it is an important facet of renting.

A true story: we received a telephone rental for a big log splitter to be delivered to the customer's brother. Log splitters can be very dangerous in the hands of the untrained, so my manager double-checked to make sure the relatively new driver wouldn't miss any safety or operational points in his little training session when he dropped off the splitter. Primed and ready to teach the customer, off he went. Well, after an abnormally long time, the driver finally got back to the store and looked at the manager as if he were going to strangle him, then explained why it took so long. "I went through the whole explanation just like you trained me. I showed him this and that and that and this. Demonstrated everything perfectly. When I was finished with the most perfect customer training I had ever done, I asked the client if he had any questions. That's when I found out that the poor guy was deaf and mute. So I had to start the training all over, this time explaining and demonstrating everything by gestures, touching and motioning. Before I left, he was working away at the log pile."

As an owner, I was pleased to see that my employee used his head and common sense and reacted well to the strange situation by doing what needed to be done. Best of all, we succeeded because the customer succeeded.