With Halloween right around the corner, we thought we’d share a few of the tricks and treats that commercial landscaping companies have to offer our clients.
Whether you’ve used a large, national provider, or a local owner-operator, chances are that at one time or another you’ve had some challenges working with your landscaper. But we also hope that you’ve had some good moments, when you were surprised and delighted by the service you received.
Up first, our top 3 tricks of commercial landscaping:
Trick #1: “Are you sure you called the right number?”
Sadly, this trick isn’t limited to landscape contractors. It’s the number one complaint that clients have about any service based business. You have a question, or even worse, an emergency, but when you call your landscaper, it goes straight to voicemail. Texts go unanswered. Emails sent without a reply. Nothing is more frustrating than an unresponsive contractor.
Trick #2: “There’s no way we did that.”
Mistakes happen. Especially in landscaping. Rocks fly up into windshields. Screens get sliced. Sprinkler heads get run over. Acknowledging the error and fixing the issue is the smart thing to do in most cases, but so many times landscape contractors immediately deny responsibility. They don’t want to admit mistakes made by their employees. It’s frustrating for clients and creates an immediate distrust in the contractor-client relationship that may never be healed.
Trick #3: “That’s not included in your contract.”
This is the worst trick of all. We hear horror stories from clients that have been burned by this one all the time. They hire a landscape contractor (usually the one that was at a substantially lower price than the rest) expecting to get a great looking landscape. A few months into the service agreement, they start to notice areas that aren’t getting mowed or trimmed often enough. They wait and wait for mulch or pine straw installations. They see annual beds with wilted flowers. When they’ve finally had enough and ask what’s going on, they hear, “That’s not included in your contract. We’d have to charge you extra for that”. Queue the reddening of the Property Manager’s face and step back as the steam starts to blow out their ears.
Those are three pretty awful tricks that no client wants from their landscape contractor. Now let us give you a few examples of our favorite treats.
Here are the top 3 ways that commercial landscape companies surprise and delight our clients:
Treat #1: “We went ahead and took care of that for you.”
A proactive contractor can be a huge benefit for a property manager. And nothing is as valuable in the client-vendor relationship as trust. Trust is built by doing the right thing for your client, before they have to ask. It's why we train our staff that, “Responsive is good, but proactive is better”. Taking care of an issue before it becomes a problem shows ownership and a sense of responsibility. Something we think every client can appreciate.
Treat #2: “We have some ideas for you to look at.”
In every landscape, there are problem areas. It might be something small, like a drainage problem on the back side of a building, or it might be something big, like an overall lack of curb appeal at your front entrance. Whatever the problem, it’s important that you have a landscape partner that offers solutions to your problems. There are thousands of companies that can cut grass. What separates the best from the rest is the ability to bring in additional resources and specialists to help you overcome your property’s biggest challenges.
Treat #3: “Is there anything else we can do for you while we’re here?”
Sometimes what surprises and delights a client the most can be the simplest thing. We once had a client tell us that what she most appreciated about our service was this one simple question we asked when our crew arrived at her site each week. Just popping in to her office to ask, “Is there anything else we can do for you while we’re here?” For her, that was like getting a full size Kit-Kat bar in her Halloween treat bag.
As a property manager, you might feel like it’s all on your shoulders. As your service partner, it’s our job to take some of that responsibility off of you and put it on ourselves. And that might just be the best treat of all.
Happy Halloween!
Jack-o-latern image courtesy Petr Kratochvil.
