Human Touch Means Repeat Business

There’s an old saying that you can do a job quickly, cheaply or really well – pick any two. Skeptics might say you can really only pick one.

It’s true that price, timeliness and quality are constant concerns of the customers of the landscape industry. If you do what you say you’ll do when you say you’ll do it and at the price that is appropriate, you can bet that you’ll prosper. But landscape business owners say that is not quite enough; human touch is what makes good customer service excellent.

Here’s what top-performing landscape professionals have to say about quality, time, price and, especially, customer service:

Quality
Quality counts. Good work means more work. According to Martin Mosko of Marpa and Associates, Boulder, Colo., “No matter what the cost is, if the quality is not there, the client will be unhappy. You can’t ever compromise on quality.”

What does “quality” mean? John Winn of Green Scape Landscaping Inc., Colorado Springs, Colo., gives a litany of examples: retaining walls built to the highest levels of craftsmanship; edging set at proper elevations; irrigation that leaves no brown spots; trees that are staked properly and aesthetically; grades properly set and drainage that does its job. These are basic things but they’ll trip you up if they’re missed, he says.

Quality in the nursery business means having an appropriate selection and readily available, knowledgeable staff. Echter’s Garden Center in Arvada, Colo., grows much of its product so that it’s suitable for the climate and conditions and ready on time, says Dave Echter. The nursery also stocks a huge variety of items, including grills and koi. More importantly, the sales staff is cross-trained to work in all the departments.

Time
If a client says she has a party planned on June 30, don’t aim to finish on the 29th; get the job done by the 15th. Inattentiveness to deadlines can sink you faster than any other single problem, professionals say.
That means contractors can’t waste time – or their clients’ time, either. Mike Ransom from Robert Howard Associates, Boulder, Colo., avoids that by meeting with clients at their convenience, being prompt and aiming to finish meetings early. When that works, clients feel as though they’ve been handed a gift.

In the wholesale nursery trade, saving the customer time wins loyalty. Dave Zach at Green Acres Nursery, Inc., Golden, Colo., says, “We try to eliminate the pick-up time for plant material,” given that the nursery covers 60 acres. They have a “will call” area where complete orders are gathered for hurried customers. Staff members even set out alternatives if the original order can’t be filled precisely.

Price
Dan Beekhuizen of Keesen Enterprises, Inc., Englewood, Colo., says that his business, commercial landscape maintenance, is extremely price-sensitive. He bids a job by knowing precisely what his full costs are for mowing 1,000 square feet of lawn, for instance. After 30 years in the business, he’s found that customers occasionally leave him for a cheaper competitor – but often come back. While prices can’t be out of line, they are simply less critical in most landscaping work.

Contact/Human Touch
For green industry professionals, making sure your business uses a “human touch” is even more important in, say, the concrete industry. Marpa’s Mosko says that designing a garden for a client is “expressing their soul level of existence.” In that sense, the creation of a garden is an act of emotion and art. People care about it. And care deeply. That mean’s you’ve got to give lots of attention to human connections.

How do you do this? Mosko says, “You have to establish complete rapport and trust” and respect the values of the client. This requires time and lots of communication.

At Robert Howard Associates, Inc., the key is that “we listen to our customers,” says Ransom. “It sounds like quite a simple thing, but we listen to what they want,” even when they don’t have the landscape contractor’s vocabulary to express it.

At Green Acres Nursery, Zach says he sees the relationship with customers as “a partnership. The greater the success, it shows we’re doing well on our end.”
Beekhuizen, one of Keesen Enterprises’ owners, says that he tries to contact every customer once a month. “I just pick up the phone and call a few customers every day.” His company also has a policy of “responding to whatever the customer feels is an emergency, not what we feel is an emergency.”

“Contact” was a key word for all these professionals. Just because it’s raining cats and dogs, don’t assume you customer knows that weather is idling your crew. Call them to report. In the case of Green Acres, the sales people call the customers promptly to report any holes in an order. Better to call them than to wait for them to be disappointed. Ransom says that “often 50 percent of fixing a problem is a fast response.”

The small things count too. Paul Fredell of Fredell Enterprises, Inc., Colorado Spring, Colo., says quality is “all the little things,” such as never leaving cigarette butts on the site, doing a daily clean-up and being considerate of clients’ children. Overall, his message to employees is to treat clients as they themselves would like to be treated.

Winn, the owner of Green Scapes Landscaping, is personally involved in every job. That’s a selling point when he’s meeting potential clients. It means he’s in contact with the homeowners who are the base of his business by being on the site for three or four hours every day.

It’s not good enough to have just the company owners care; that idea has to filter down to everyone in the operation, says Tom Bridge, an owner of Southwest Land Services, Inc., Durango, Colo. He says he can teach a good worker about plants and trees in his nursery or how to install a landscape according to a plan, but “finding someone with the right people skills is most important.”

These skills can be taught. Echter uses customer service videos and frequent discussions about customer service. Little Valley Nursery (near Brighton, Colo.) sends staff members to training seminars.

Ransom, at Robert Howard Associates, takes a less formal approach. In training staff to fully grasp the concept that they are employed to serve the clients’ needs, Ransom will take staff out to lunch and ask them to note everything about service that they experience in the restaurant. How were they treated? Was the service prompt? What were their impressions of the staff, or the ambiance? If they can articulate what makes good service for them as consumers, they can apply those ideas to the service they provide clients.

Does this emphasis on the customer mean the customer is always right? Sort of. Beekhuizen says, “The customer is the boss. That’s who we work for.”
Fredell says, “This is not a business where every detail is spelled out exactly. I don’t care how involved a drawing is, it’s always open to interpretation. If the client interpreted it one way, unless you can convince them that you did it a better way, the customer is right.”

There is a delicate question, however, of what to do with a client’s request that might be unwise, given the site, budget or other constraints.

The clients come for your professional expertise, after all. Bridge, in Durango, Colo., says, “We try to give them everything and more than they expect. The trick is to do that and save them, at the same time, from themselves” when they are asking for things that may not “give them good value” or for that matter, be appropriate in the environment.

Mosko, from Marpa, says, “You have to remember that the garden will probably outlast the occupants.” That means that while finding ways to understand the client’s needs and desires is essential (he uses a questionnaire), it is also essential to balance those with the nature of the land.

So, you’ll probably find yourself educating your clients along the way.
Education is taking place in the nursery business as well. Zach, at Green Acres, teaches his staff to ask the customer if there is any question about the suitably of a choice. By asking “Did you know this gets this big?” it’s possible to avoid missed expectations – and to share information that may be new to the trade.

Good listening, consideration of the customer’s time, a willingness to repair a situation to the customer’s satisfaction – these are traits that engender satisfaction, which leads to referrals and repeats. To sum up with one of Ransom’s favorite phrases: customer service is at its best when you “underpromise and overdeliver.”

Wendy Underhill, Boulder, Colo., is a freelance writer and frequent contributer to Colorado Green magazine. This article appeared originally in the publication’s summer 2002 edition.