What are the key points electricians need to consider to be successful?
Once you’ve qualified as an electrician, you can officially enter the trades industry and begin your career.
Whether you work for an electrical company, a building contractor, or as a self-employed electrical contractor, when you love your job, it will show in the quality of your work. But passion for the job isn’t always enough, and you’ll need to develop your soft skills as well as your hard skills in order to be successful in your career.
We look at some of the simple tips you can follow to ensure you’re a successful electrician who leaves customers satisfied and compels them to recommend you.
1. Customer care and diplomacy
Self-employed electricians typically deal with customers daily; therefore, customer care needs to be at the heart of everything you do. If you look after your customers and do a great job for them, they will refer you on to their friends and contacts, which can help you to grow your business without spending money on advertising.
At some point it is likely that you will encounter an issue in which a customer may not be happy with your work. If you’re self-employed, it will be vital for you to maintain diplomacy and stay calm when negotiating the required rectifications.
2. Ongoing training and development
If you want to succeed in your career, you’ll need to continue your electrical training and stay up to date with legislation, new ways of working, and new electrical appliances.
There are many courses that can help you to learn additional hard skills so you can become a supervisor in your company or an owner of your own electrical business.
You can get training online or at college, which can include advanced electrical skills, bookkeeping and accounting courses, customer service training, employee management training, and much more.
3. Dedication and collaboration
When you start out as an electrician, show how dedicated you are to your employers. Be on time for work and work collaboratively with your colleagues. This will result in you building an enhanced reputation with your employers, potential promotions and pay rises, and the chance of taking on more responsibility and learning more.
This will then stand you in good stead if you want to become self-employed, because it is likely that you’ll have picked up many of the soft skills and hard skills required to be successful at managing projects and staff, and how to liaise with customers.
4. Responsibility and accountability
It goes without saying that if you work with electricity, you have a great responsibility to ensure the safety of your customer and members of the public, as well as your own welfare.
If you’re a self-employed electrician, then you have a responsibility to maintain customer relations and to ensure the safety of your customers’ property.
If you work for a main contractor, then your responsibility is to the main contractor and to the other tradespeople who are working with you.
If you make a mistake, it’s important to be accountable and take positive action to rectify the error, rather than avoid it and hope that someone else will sort the problem for you.
Showing that you’re responsible will help to build trust, which in-turn will lead to recommendations and future work.
5. Communication
Good communication is important for successful relationships with your customers, your employers, and with your suppliers.
When speaking to customers and suppliers, on the telephone or in person, maintain friendliness and a light toner of voice.
6. Working with reputable companies and suppliers
When you are considering who to work for when you start your electrical career, look at the company’s reviews. Are they a trusted provider, or do they have a mixed reputation with some negative reviews?
Who you work for will reflect on you and your reputation in the future. Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and many potential customers will know who to trust and who not to call when it comes to reputable electrical companies.
If you then want to start your own electrical business, you will be thankful for working for reputable companies with solid reputations when you explain your background to your customers.
These are just a few of the points to be aware of to be successful in your career. It’s important to remember, that when you’re self-employed you are your business, so how you conduct yourself and how you develop your skills can be crucial to your long-term success.
Good luck with your venture.
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