LEARN HOW TO MAKE CUSTOMERS FEEL SMART AND RESPECTED, LEADING TO GREATER TRUST IN YOUR BUSINESS.

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson:
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk, everyone. Today’s subject, if you’ve looked at the title, is a little bit of a different title, right? People want to feel smart and pretty. I actually got this from an episode of The Office, and I love to quote The Office—the scene where James Spader was saying there is no sales. You want to feel young, you want to feel handsome, you want to feel intelligent, whatever. He was just going on and on, and he was talking about the human condition versus actually selling a product. But today we’re not going to apply it to selling a product. Today we’re going to apply it to our customer service. This was a lesson that I learned recently in two different directions.

The first one was on the giving end, so I want to make sure this is all as anonymized—anonymized, if that’s a word—as possible. So we had a client. They had an issue. They contacted us, very upset. So what we did was start troubleshooting the issue with them. And as a home inspector, you’ve done this many times. You know, it’s the quintessential, “Did you try turning it off and on again?” How many of us have gotten a call for a garbage disposal that doesn’t work after they move in, and it’s just the reset button at the bottom? Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s that. So we go through the process, right? So going through the process, he was getting more and more upset, and I could sense it, but we needed to get the issue fixed. Finally, I figured out what the issue was and gave him a solution. And my whole team, especially David, will make fun of me about this. For some reason, when I know the solution to something, I am not very good about expressing it. It comes off the wrong way in email, on the phone, and in a text. I don’t know. I try really hard, but he took great offense to the solution. Now, most of the time, we would think that, okay, cool, we found the solution. Well, that was easy. But instead, his problem after that was, “You’re insulting my intelligence. I feel like you’re talking down to me.” As soon as he started into the expressions, “I feel like,” I knew that I did something wrong, and that was totally on me.

So a lot of times we have a technician’s mentality, right? I see wall. Wall not straight. Wall get called out. Wall should be straight. It’s logic, right? But people are not very logical. As much as we’d hate to admit and like to think otherwise, we as humans are oftentimes not logical. So I didn’t fully understand how he felt until I got it on the receiving end. So I had to do a wire transfer, and so for some reason my banking institution, they want me to call and create errors. I don’t know. So I call. I even emailed them the form. I’m like, “This gets done every month. Fill it out exactly the way it is. Nothing changes except for the amount.” It was over an hour later, so mind you, this was a half-page form. Over an hour later, we’re on our fourth attempt to get this done. I’m being as calm and polite as I can. I’m on with a supervisor at this point. But how I got to that supervisor was very interesting. The woman on the other end that was initially doing it and made the first group of mistakes started to say that the problem was on me. As soon as she said that, I got a little prickly. I’m like, “Okay, that could be, but let’s find a solution.” So her solution was I was having internet issues, or I don’t know how to use their website. I’m like, “I’m on a phone call with you. You guys made me call. Why am I also on a website?” And I didn’t tell her. I’m like, “I’m a web developer. This is what I do. I know how things work, and I can see all these errors in the console on your website. You guys are having a technical issue.” Turns out I was actually right. The supervisor actually said the same thing to me. He goes, “Hey, you know, it’s all your fault, blah, blah, blah.” And then I go, “Well, hang on a second. Here’s the service that you use, and here’s a service outage right at the first three attempts.” And he looked at it and he goes, “Oh man, you’re right. This was totally on us. It was. I’m sorry.” And he got it fixed with some more errors, but that’s okay. But I was on the receiving end of feeling like I was being talked down to.

So let’s get back to the title of our discussion. We want to feel smart and pretty. Who of us doesn’t want to feel like we have a measure of intelligence? Who of us doesn’t want to feel like we’re pretty? The pretty part is just for humor. It’s not anything. But we want to have respect. We want to feel dignified, and we want to feel not like an idiot, even when we’re being an idiot. So that brings me back to what I did wrong with that first guy. I did not make him feel intelligent, smart, and respected. Was it an error? Yeah. Could he have figured it out if he had done the first steps that I had given him? Yeah. But he didn’t want to do those because I was doing customer support wrong. So that’s a roundabout way of saying, if we want to make sure clients, agents, sellers—everybody—respects us and thinks we’re amazing, we need to make them feel smart, respected, capable, and all those things above. So, how do we do that?

Here are some ways that I have always tried to do, and since my last experience, ways that I’m trying to improve. First of all, I learned a new phrase: “I believe you. I’m just not able to recreate the issue.” So, for instance, somebody has a heating issue. The heating unit won’t turn on. Instead of saying, “It was working when I was there,” that automatically, in their mind, puts them on the defense and makes them feel dumb, like it’s their fault that their heating unit isn’t working. Instead, we can say something like, “I believe you. It was working when I was there, but I believe you that it’s not working now. Let’s figure it out.” So it says the same thing, but dignifies the other person. Now they’re on our team. Let’s get this done. So all that troubleshooting that I did with that other client would have gone a lot better if I had started off that way. Instead, I started off with, “That wasn’t a problem when we were there. So let’s troubleshoot these five things.” Because invariably, the five things are going to be stupid things. But listen, they’re usually first-time homebuyers. It’s like, “Did you push the reset button? Is the breaker tripped? Did you unplug the dehumidifier?” And whatever. I don’t know. Dignify the person. “I believe you. It wasn’t like that when we were there, but I totally believe you. It’s not working now. Let’s figure this out together.”

That leads me to my second choice of words. Always say “together” at some point. Not necessarily the whole time. Like, somebody’s going to be in a mentality: “I just want you to fix this.” We start saying, “Let’s do this together,” they’re going to probably get more upset. But ultimately, especially if it’s on a phone call and we can’t see what’s in their home, say, “Okay, I’m with you on this.” Perfect. Now we’ve essentially said we’re working on this together. Imagine coupling that with, “I believe you. It was working when I was there, but I believe you it’s not working now, though. So I’m with you on this. Let’s get this taken care of.” Now we just turned them, not into somebody who feels dumb, but somebody who feels dignified and taken care of at the same time. Now it’s not their fault. Now we’re working on a solution together.

Think about this with—you know, interestingly, I just switched doctors. I don’t know what happened to my first doctor. He just—he left. Maybe things are that bad with my health that he just left. I’m just joking. He had some personal issues, they said. But my new doctor is a very different doctor. For the good and the bad of my new doctor, I kind of like my previous one, but he does do something a little bit more interesting. He dignifies me. Like, he’ll ask me questions. He’ll find anything about my health that I’m doing well and ask me, “How did you go about that? How did you do this?” I improved my cholesterol numbers, and he goes, “You know, most people can’t improve their cholesterol numbers to that decimal point. How did you do that?” So immediately I feel dignified, and I feel smart. He doesn’t make me feel too pretty when he tells me I need to lose 10 pounds, but we’ll move on from that. I feel smart, and so then when he tells me the next things that I need to do, I’m like, okay, he dignified me. I’ll dignify him. When in reality, he’s the one who knows 1,000 times more than I do, right?

So that’s the third point. Find a way to dignify the other person. This works especially well with sellers. Now, most of the time, the seller’s not on the inspection, but when we go to pick up radon tests, water tests, have to stop back by the house for any reason, or sometimes they are there on the inspection. I’ve had some sellers call me. When that happens, when we interact with them—more importantly, the seller’s agent—then we can dignify them. Say, “I can tell you’ve taken great care of your house.” Okay, let’s say we found, you know, a toilet leaking. Pretty common, right? Loose toilet is leaking, and we point it out, and they overhear it and they freak out. “I put this toilet in,” yada, yada, yada, yada, or my brother did. Say, “Oh, okay, cool. I could tell that this was installed properly initially. Yeah, trust me. I have a toilet loose at my house, and I just haven’t gotten to it. But, you know, it sounds like you do a lot of your maintenance, and I’m finding a lot of really great maintenance stuff in here. Usually, a lot of the houses we inspect have a ton of problems, you know. If you have a maintenance list, you could leave that for the new buyers. I think that would be really helpful for them.” We still pointed out the issue. Dignify the seller. I can guarantee you that both of those agents are going to recommend us after that inspection. There’s always something that we can compliment somebody on, even in the worst of houses. Let’s say it’s an estate and the executor is selling it, and he did some of the work, but the rest of the house is trash. “You know, you’ve done an amazing job as an executor. I can’t imagine all that you’ve gone through. I know this is a lot of work, and I know it seems like we’re being picky, but I just want to point this one thing out, and it’s not anything about you. In fact, here’s five things that I found that I complimented on.”

It also works that way for the seller’s agent. Seller’s agents are usually very excited about their houses that they’re listing. Otherwise, they’d be terrible selling agents. So they tend to look at things through rose-colored glasses, right? That’s why they act all surprised when there’s a big defect. A good listing agent is going to be like, “Let’s get excited about this sale.” That’s their job. It doesn’t mean they’re being skeezy. There are skeezy agents, just like there are skeezy people in every industry. But even really good agents can sometimes overlook things looking through those rose-colored glasses. So, if we find a defect and all we’re pointing out are the defects, could that make the agent feel dumb? Yeah, because that’s their job. Now they have to go back to the seller and say, “Well, I didn’t notice this, this, this, this, and this.” And they’re going to feel dumb, even though the seller doesn’t take it that way. Could we throw in a couple of compliments for the house? And I know this is going to get some blowback, but I have always found an opportunity to compliment pretty much every house I’ve ever inspected. Be like, “Cool backyard. This is pretty awesome. What do you have here, five acres? This is great. You have a great spot over there for a pond.” So now, when I point out that the roof is garbage, it makes everybody feel less dumb. I’ve often had my buyers feel dumb, or the buyer’s dad feel dumb. “I didn’t notice that the roof was bad.” “Oh well, don’t worry about it, man. You know, you didn’t climb on the roof. That’s my job. Let’s take a look at this. It sounds like you know a thing or two. Let me show you some pictures.” And now you involve him. The seller’s agent’s like, “Well, he complimented the backyard. That’s what I put in my listing, so I feel good about it.” You know, walk through the house and be like, “Oh wow, this is a great use of space. Oh, look at this oven. I wish I had an oven like that. Did you know your living room ceiling’s falling in?” It’s all about balance. A home inspector recently—he’s probably listening in. How you doing, buddy?—asked me about real estate agents and why they didn’t recommend him. And it came down to that. It came down to making everybody in the transaction feel dignified.

And this is an internal personal belief of mine. Everybody should feel dignified about themselves. We should give respect to those who deserve respect because they deserve such respect. But we should also respect those who don’t deserve respect because we respect ourselves and those around them. So that leaves very little room for anyone not receiving a measure of respect and dignity. So, next time we’re having a problem with a client, an agent, a buyer, seller, anybody, another home inspector even, step back and ask ourselves: Is the problem really the problem? Because personally, I found that most of the time it’s not. Even when a buyer moves in and they find all this junk and they get mad at us, but all the junk is in the report—I see it in the report—they are not calling to say that it wasn’t in the report. They’re calling from an emotional standpoint. They feel dumb for their purchase. They feel dumb for not negotiating on it, and they need to vent. If we can take things from those angles, we have found that we have avoided a lot more issues with people, and issues get smoothed over a lot faster, and we get a lot more referrals that way. So make sure everybody around us feels smart and pretty. Thank you for listening in, and we’ll see you next time at Inspector Toolbelt Talk.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of Inspector Toolbelt Talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].

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*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast, and the guests on it, do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.

PODCAST SUMMARY/BLOG

Customer service for home inspectors lives or dies on one invisible factor: dignity. Clients don’t call after a home inspection report because they love paperwork, they call because something feels wrong and their stress spikes. When we respond like technicians, we can accidentally communicate “you should have known this,” even if we never say those words. That’s why the core lesson is simple: people want to feel smart and respected. If your tone or wording makes them feel talked down to, they stop listening, they get defensive, and the conversation turns into conflict. The goal isn’t to “win” the troubleshooting, it’s to guide them toward a solution while protecting the relationship.

A common scenario is the post move-in call where the fix is basic: a reset button, a tripped breaker, an unplugged device. Those are normal homeowner moments, especially for first-time buyers, but the way we introduce the steps matters. If we open with “it was working when I was there,” the client hears blame and embarrassment. A stronger script starts with belief and partnership: “I believe you, I’m just not able to recreate the issue. Let’s figure it out.” This keeps the same facts while removing the sting. Then we can ask for the simple checks without implying incompetence. Great home inspector communication is less about perfect wording and more about keeping the other person on your team.

It’s easier to understand when you’ve been on the receiving end. The moment a service rep suggests the problem is your fault, your patience evaporates, even if you’re trying to stay polite. That’s the emotional truth behind many angry calls: the caller feels blamed, ignored, or underestimated. Using “together” can help when it’s sincere and situational: “I’m with you on this,” or “Let’s get this taken care of.” The phrase signals shared ownership, which lowers the temperature and increases cooperation. For inspection businesses, this is not soft fluff. It directly reduces escalations, speeds up resolutions, and protects your online reputation.

This approach also applies to real estate agents and sellers, who can feel exposed when defects show up. A listing agent is paid to be optimistic, so nonstop defect talk can make them feel foolish in front of their client. Balance changes everything: offer honest compliments that are still true. “You’ve taken great care of the house,” “Great use of space,” or “This backyard is fantastic.” Then deliver the defect clearly and professionally. You can dignify a buyer’s parent too by involving them: “You didn’t climb the roof, that’s my job. Let me show you photos.” When people feel respected, they calm down, they trust your expertise, and they refer you. Often the real problem isn’t the issue itself, it’s how the person feels while the issue is being handled.