Call Me!

When a plumber tells a client he’ll be at their house between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., that doesn’t exactly convey an attitude of customer service or a commitment to excellence. While most customers who request service jobs understand that busy schedules are difficult to coordinate, they also expect to be treated in a respectful, timely manner, and kept apprised of the situation if things aren’t going as planned.

Enter Belknap Landscape, Gilford, N.H. “We try to schedule and route everything properly and give our clients a heads-up phone call when we anticipate being there to perform those services,” explained Andrew Morse, director of operations for the company. From mowing to mulching, regardless of whether crews are a few minutes late or a few minutes early, Belknap Landscape’s clients know in advance when their properties will be visited.

“We try to pre-call and notify the client in advance of what our anticipated time is – they love that,” Morse reiterated. “Even if we’re running behind and we call them to say, ‘We thought we’d be there today, but it looks like tomorrow, mid-morning,’ they appreciate it.”

Clients are notified when work at their property is completed as well. Since Morse’s crews care for many second homes or weekend homes in their area, homeowners may or may not be onsite during maintenance. “A lot of times our clients are only up on the weekends or during the summer, but they still want to know that things have been done,” Morse noted. “We call them up to tell them we’re going to do the work, but we also call them to say it’s been done and inspected. If they have any questions or concerns they’re free to call us back.”

With such a significant amount of telephone time to handle, Belknap Landscape has two to three administrative employees manning the phones and staying in touch with clients on a regular basis. Because these staff members also have other administrative duties, there is little extra cost involved, whereas hiring a dedicated individual for the job would increase direct costs. Morse assures that any extra expenses that do exist are recovered through satisfied clients.

“We make up our costs through repeat business and client satisfaction,” he noted. “Staying in contact keeps the client a lot longer because they like the type of attention and service we provide.

“By calling our customers frequently, we really cut down on the number of emergency calls we get,” Morse observed. “When you get call-backs, it can really break down your efficiency and everything you’ve worked hard to schedule and route in the first place. That can snowball and have effects on your scheduling days or weeks down the road.”

Additionally, Morse makes sure that crew leaders contact field managers before the crew leaves a jobsite, ultimately increasing efficiency. “We have team leaders give the field managers a call at least an hour in advance of completing the project so the manager can get out there and review it with them,” he explained. “If there are any problems or changes or additions, the crew can do it at that time before they leave the job.” Rather than having field managers inspect jobs the next morning, resulting in more drive time for them and for crews who need to make adjustments on the property, a simple phone call gets jobs done right the first time.

And, of course, if a problem is found, Morse and his crews call the client immediately. “If you notice something, you have to call the client right away so you can take care of it at that point,” he insisted. “Again, you save yourself travel time and management time and the client loves that. Any time we call one of our clients to tell them we found [a problem] and that we aren’t able to fix it at that time, but we can put it into the schedule, that’s the green light. They don’t want to deal with problems – that’s our job.”

With the approach that Belknap Landscape takes to contacting clients, everyone comes out on top. A few quick phone calls keep clients from putting their days on hold in case the crews show up at unexpected times, and both crews and account managers are spared the extra expense of travel time because of prompt inspections. Though employees might rack up a few minutes on their cell phones, the end result is phone book filled with satisfied customers.

The author is Assistant Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@lawnandlandscape.com.