What Walks Out With Him
Whoever takes over the route starts with a customer list and whatever the previous tech remembers to pass on. A tech who just quit isn't always in the mood to write it all down. The first few visits run late. The new tech asks questions the previous one never had to ask, and the person behind the bar who used to see a familiar face now sees a stranger.
The owner usually rebuilds the routes. When I ran Draught Prophets, I tracked hundreds of accounts on index cards and then Excel, and I spent evenings and Fridays planning routes by hand. I would not want to do a week of that again in a hurry with a customer waiting.
How A Tech Takes Your Customers With Him
The worst case is a tech who quits and starts his own draft service company. Picture a tech who has cleaned the same bars for four years. The managers know him by name, and he knows how much each pays. The owner last spoke to most of those customers during the sales call. When the tech phones and offers the same work for less, little is holding the customer to you.
Quitting is a tech's right, so make it hard for him to take customers with him. Three habits help.
1. Move Your Techs' Territories Every Few Months
A tech who works the same bars for years gets to know the people there very well. That improves service, and it means one person owns the relationship with each customer. Moving each tech's territory every few months spreads that relationship around. Customers see more than one face from your company and get used to dealing with the company itself. A tech who has had a customer for only a few months has not had time to become the person that customer trusts most.
Expect a few questions when a face changes. A short note ahead of the move saying your techs rotate on a schedule answers the question before anyone asks.
2. Set a Schedule for Talking to Your Customers
When a company is small, the owner knows every customer and speaks to most of them routinely. As it grows, routes and invoices crowd out those conversations. A year goes by, then two, and the only person who regularly speaks to a customer is the tech who services the system. If that tech leaves, the customer has no relationship with anyone at your company.
A schedule fixes that. Decide how often you will speak with every customer, and treat every six months as a starting point. Tap Trackers has a CRM (customer relationship manager) feature for this. Choose the months you want to contact each customer, and at the start of each month run a report listing who you need to call or chat with. By picking the months, you can spread contacts across the year and avoid a month when everyone comes due at once.
During the call, ask how the beer is pouring and whether anything needs attention.
Customers who hear from the owner twice a year know who runs the company and are less likely to follow a former tech out the door.
3. Write Down What Your Techs Know
Every establishment in Tap Trackers has its own admin tab with 40 options for entering location details, so everyone on your team who services it knows what they need to know. Some options describe the system: the system type, the pressure type, and which beverages are on tap. Others cover timing. Delivery days tell a tech when the walk-in will be full, so he doesn't arrive to clean lines on a busy day. Typical busy hours tell him when to avoid the establishment, and No Go Hours record when the bar is too busy or when nobody has keys to let him in.
You can also upload photos of the establishment. A new tech taking over a route has the details and pictures before he leaves the shop and doesn't need to track down the previous tech with questions.
This also makes the first habit workable. Rotating territories only makes sense if a tech can walk into a customer he's never visited and already know what he needs. Details stored in your system stay with your company when a tech leaves.
Where To Start
Pick the customers you would least want to lose. Set their contact months in the CRM and run the first report on the first of next month. Then fill in their establishment tabs.
If your best tech gave notice on Monday, how many of your customers could you call on Tuesday and talk to by name?