Contractor Profile: Gresham Landscape – Keeping Customers First

In 1986 Henry had just about had it in the metal fabricating business – the noise, the monotony, the confines. That’s when he decided to try his luck in landscape maintenance. Following a season of weekend mowing and planting work, with one employee, one truck, limited equipment and himself, Henry traded in the metal press in 1987 for a full-time job using his self-proclaimed green thumb. He started out by mowing, pruning, fertilizing and doing other maintenance services. Now, 13 years later, Henry is offering several more services, like tree and shrub removal, irrigation repair, thatching and aeration, and is enjoying success as a company owner with close to $400,000 in annual sales. He now has eight trucks, a wide array of equipment and trailers and six to seven seasonal employees and four to five year-round employees. And he owes it all to his customer-friendly attitude and way of conducting business.

TREATING CUSTOMERS AS FRIENDS. Henry (pictured at right) said that selling his company’s services has a lot to do with becoming friends with the customers. "I try to give them respect," he explained. "The impression that you leave is probably the most critical. I try to find something in common with them, and it’s important to me that when I leave, they feel like they’ve made a friend."

For that reason, Henry will often spend extra time with potential and existing clients to develop lasting friendships. That extra time is spent having a cup of coffee, talking about family and discussing common interests rather than just rushing through a bid and pushing for a sale. "A little extra time in the beginning reaps big benefits down the road," Henry said. "If I make that initial sale, even though it might be something small, they may never look for competitive bids again. Then I’ve got a customer for life."

Treating customers as friends increases the loyalty factor and trust they have in Henry and his company. "Keep them happy and they will in turn support you," he said. Additionally, he stands behind his work and conducts business the old-fashioned way – with a handshake and his word. "I normally take no money down (when selling a big job). I tell them that they pay me when the job is done and they’re happy," he explained. "The key word is customer satisfaction. When they’re satisfied, we know we’ve done our job."

MANAGING ACCOUNTS. Gresham Landscape’s sales calls and estimates are handled solely by Henry. The company’s web site (www.greshamlandscape.com) states that this policy is in effect "to assure [the company’s] customers will get the best bid from a knowledgeable landscape professional." But once landscape maintenance and installation sales are made, Henry hands the reigns over to his son-in-law Byron Williams, who serves as the company’s crew foreman. Henry will come back to a job site for the initial walkthrough with Williams and introduce him to the clients – keeping in check with the company’s customer-friendly focus. Then he lets Williams and the crews go to work replacing beds, aerating, dethatching and doing other contracted work.

Landscape maintenance jobs are put up on a job board at the office, and scheduling and planning are done accordingly. The same practice is followed with general maintenance routes for mowing, edging, blowing and fertilizing. However, the general maintenance jobs are pretty straightforward and don’t require quite the amount of top management involvement. Instead, Henry is confident that his company’s professionally dressed staff, clean equipment and fine quality work speak for themselves on these accounts. The company’s exposure to clients year-round also helps.

Because of the mild winters in the Portland area, Henry is able to send small crews out in the typical off-season for most contractors in his area. "We’re able to eat all winter long because of that," he said. Off-season maintenance includes leaf removal, chemical applications that help his technicians avoid playing catch up in the spring and late fall pruning. "Most companies, if they do a year-round contract, work through October or November, depending on the weather. Then you don’t see them until February or March," Henry said. "With my company – I don’t care unless there’s snow or ice on the ground – my guys come out. They might not do a lot, but they come out and rake the beds out, pluck the beds and make sure everything looks good and stays in shape." He views this practice as an important one for customer relations. "It costs me more in the long run, but it benefits me, too, because that’s where the referrals come in."

Henry’s customer base includes approximately 200 maintenance accounts with about half qualifying as year-round accounts. The other half of those accounts are seasonal, which Henry defines as covering any time period less than 52 weeks a year. There are also many one-time projects that pop up throughout the year, including clean-up work, lawn renovations and tree work. Year-round and seasonal customers receive the following services: mowing every week (depending on growth), lawn edging every other week, walks and other areas blown clean after each visit, fertilization and weed control as needed and debris removal after each visit. Year-round customers also receive leaf removal in fall and winter and two full prunings of small trees and shrubs 8 feet and under.

CUSTOMER-FRIENDLY MARKETING. A majority of Gresham Landscape’s marketing efforts deal with community and customer relations. Many of Henry’s advertising choices are geared at supporting the local community, including ads in the local high school and college newspapers, local sports programs, Better Business Bureau publications and other community-related literature. He also relies on local yellow pages, three of which he advertises in, sporadic ads in The Oregonian, a large Portland-based newspaper, and advertising on golf course benches.

However, Henry’s involvement with his customers really pays off in how he obtains the majority of new accounts. "Word of mouth is really the key," he said. That form of customer appreciation for his work generates approximately 50 percent of his new business. "That’s when you know you’re doing a good job and you’re successful," he said. "With advertising, you want to be out there for the new customers. They have to have an avenue to find you. But once you’re established and you’ve got a good customer base, word of mouth is really important."

Another key to making it easier for customers to choose his company’s services is the option to pay by credit card. Henry accepts both Visa and MasterCard such that customers can charge services and give themselves their own payment schedule. Although only about 5 to 10 percent of his customers use the credit card payment option, Henry believes this practice is worth the investment because he doubts he would have most of those accounts if he didn’t offer credit card payments.

GETTING STARTED AND GROWING. "When I started, I read that the service industry was getting big. I knew that there was an industry that was being developed that was going in that direction. That was one of the reasons why I started. And there wasn’t a lot of competition. It’s a lot tougher these days just b/c there are so many people who have jumped on the bandwagon," said Henry.

He said the increased competition helps him stay on top of ways to make his business succeed. Naturally, anything to do with increasing customer service has helped in that success. Henry recalled his first year in business when he and his wife were trying to manage the bookkeeping, marketing, customer relations and actual work all on their own. He quickly realized that a full-time office manager was a necessity. That responsibility currently falls on Sonja Williams.

Henry explained the importance of an office manager, especially in being the liaison between the customers and himself. "Because Sonja is in the office full time, when somebody calls the office, they’re not getting an answering machine. Instead I can respond almost immediately to any situation," he said. He knows of several companies in his area that only have an answering machine or an answering service. Because of the delay factor in answering messages, Henry believes those companies’ customer response time is probably much slower than his.

Another advantage Henry cited of having an office manager is providing a friendly voice to callers instead of an impersonal machine. "Sonja is really good with the customers, and I hear a lot of positive things from my customers because of that," he said. "Generally when I go out to meet them for the first time, the first thing out of their mouth is, ‘Boy, Sonja sure is nice.’ And that helps open the door for you."

As far as growth, Henry has enjoyed a steady increase in his 13 years in the business. He’s shooting for $500,000 as a goal in sales for next season and is comfortable with a steady rate of growth. "I like my growth pattern. I don’t want to get so big that I don’t have time for my family and myself," he explained. "I’ve found a nice niche in my city, and I make a good living at it. And my employees make a good living."

Henry is pleased he anticipated the growth of the industry in his area early on. "I think the timing was right because the industry was just really getting going and anybody that worked hard would see good results," he said. "I think today it would be much harder to start out just because there are so many companies."

For more information about Gresham Landscape Maintenance and Tree Service visit the company’s web site at www.greshamlandscape.com.

The author is Internet Editor of Lawn & Landscape Online.