Are You Qualifying Your Customers?

Qualifying customers has to be one of the most fundamental keys to a rental company’s success. Although it's difficult to label any topic as more important than others in the equipment rental business, putting in a maximum effort in this area should be a priority.

Of course, you want each customer to have a successful rental experience with every item they rent. However, even if the rental item is in perfect operational condition, without qualifying the potential renter, it’s possible that the customer could experience serious problems. Is your company doing all it can to ensure customers are able to operate the equipment they are renting? Here are just a few considerations and ideas to consider:

• Train employees that asking questions is a critical part of the qualification process. In many cases, employees are simply not asking enough questions to qualify the customer – and often are not asking the proper questions. Just asking “yes” and “no” response questions (such as “have you used one of these before?”) is not enough. Employees should be trying to discover the “who, what, where, when and why” types of information.

• Train employees not to assume that the customer is able to use the equipment. Sometimes customers ask for the items they wish to rent in such a confident manner that they lead you to believe that they are experienced and capable. At times, they are not.

• Ensure that your employees are properly trained in “equipment operation” for your entire inventory. Some well-meaning homeowner/do-it-yourself customers are unaware of the physical strength needed to operate certain rental items. Undertrained employees are not going to have the equipment operational knowledge to make the judgement call of when not to rent certain rental items to a customer. Remember, there is no such thing as common sense – everything must be learned.

• Be certain that employees also receive proper “equipment application” training. As I mentioned in the past, undertrained employees are not likely to ask the appropriate questions to match the customer’s need with the correct piece or pieces of equipment. I know a rental business owner whose employee was confident that the customer could use a chain saw but failed to ask what the customer was cutting. The customer used it to cut a chain link fence and readily admitted it upon return. Of course, the chain saw was severely damaged and the customer was lucky that he didn’t injure himself. So, it is important to remember to train employees that not only should they be qualifying the customer’s ability to use the equipment but also they should be finding out if the equipment is a good match for the customer’s project.

• Inform your employees that at times the opportunity to discover whether a customer is likely to be able to use your equipment properly is during or after instructions are given to the customer. In addition to giving each customer verbal instructions and a demonstration, have the customer demonstrate that they can operate the item, if possible. Of course, if the customer has rented the item from your company previously, “testing” the customer’s ability may not be necessary. But, it is always better to be safe than sorry.

• Have a qualification training system. The training effort must be consistent and on-going.

• Make this training universal. It’s not good enough to have just one or two employees who possess the skill to qualify customers. All who have dealings with customers need to be trained. This includes counter personnel who assist rental customers by phone and in person, those who help customers with instructions, employees who help load the equipment customers are renting, those who deliver equipment for operators in the field, etc.

• Make employees comfortable. Great rental companies are focused, of course, on saying “yes” to customers. But, make it “okay” to decline the occasional rental when renting would likely cause a problem. Remind employees that renting to unqualified customers can ruin equipment, cause unsatisfied customers and can be very dangerous.

Certainly, customers can make a mistake or forget instructions so it is not always the case that the problems arose because they were not qualified to be using the equipment. However, a major effort to try to rent to only those who are qualified will decrease profit robbing expenses and enhance your company’s reputation.