What are the things that make a business stand out from the rest? What makes clients keep going back to some businesses, but avoid others? What is a hallmark of a successful company vs a not-so-great one? If you’re just getting started in business, these are likely all questions you’ve asked yourself and would like the answer to.
The four things that make a good landscaping business are great quality services, always on-time services, reasonable prices, and an accommodating team. Follow these four tips to make your business, outstanding!
If all four of these tips sound more or less like the customer service aspect of a business, that’s because they are. Customer service is the foundation of a successful business, and taking care of the customer in every aspect of customer service is important. Read on to learn more about how each area is important to deliver on to achieve glowing reviews and a company that will never go out of business.
Always Providing Great Quality Services
The key to always providing great service is to constantly deliver great customer service. Not good customer service, GREAT customer service. The kind of service that always gets services done at the time promised, if not early. Service that always gets clients a fair deal, so they won’t feel like they’ve overpaid. Service that makes the customer feel like every one of them is your only client, and gets your full attention – even when you have nine others you’re juggling at the same time. Your clients need to feel like they are your top priority, and that they can rest assured that their job will get done perfectly. This kind of service is the only kind of service that will make your clients keep coming back for more.
If constantly providing great customer service is important, so is being consistent with it. Your level of customer service needs to always be on the same level. Don’t let clients who get you on a day when you are tired or frustrated feel any lesser than the clients who get you on a great day! You may be having an off day, but that is not your client’s fault, nor do they need to feel the brunt of it. Another good rule of thumb is to make sure your last client of the day, gets just as great a service as your first client! It’s the end of a long day, and it may feel like a good idea to cut corners and get the job done quickly to get home. But that client deserves your full attention and great services just like the rest of your clients do. So, make sure you provide it!
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Services that are Always on Time
This goes hand in hand with the last tip – but you need to make sure that every service is delivered on time – no exceptions. Nothing frustrates a customer more than being promised a certain deadline, only to have their landscaper come to them with reasons why it won’t be finished on time. They may have a party scheduled that they want the yard ready for. They may be traveling after a certain point and need it done by then. Or simply don’t appreciate the delay. Make sure that you always quote your client properly and with some extra wiggle room, so you can finish early and delight the client, rather than have to ask for more time and disappoint them. They likely won’t be coming back to you next summer if you can’t meet the deadline, you promised them.
Life happens to us all, and sometimes whether life gets in the way or needed supplies get delayed you may have instances when you can’t get a job completed on time. When this happens, don’t make excuses, just be upfront with the client about what happened, and what your plan is to fix it. If the customer gets upset – offer them a discount on the service to sweeten the deal and appease them. Again, you do not want to get in the habit of not finishing your services on time, but it helps to have a plan in place to solve it when it does.
A good idea to avoid delays in general, is to quote the end of the job a few days further out than you think you will be done. That way, when the job gets done early, your client will appreciate your service even more, because you have now given them extra time back that they were not planning on. On the other hand, if you do end up having to take those extra days, no harm no foul, since your client always planned on you taking those extra days to begin with.
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Setting Fair Prices
Make sure that you are quoting your client’s fair prices. You don’t want word to get around that your prices are considerably higher than neighboring businesses. As this again, likely won’t gain you too many fans. Always do your research and make sure that your prices are in line with what your competition is offering. If you don’t have a whole lot of competition – do your research online to see what the going prices for services are statewide, and go from there.
Even if you are currently the only landscaping business in town, do the right thing and still keep your prices fair. Just because you don’t have competition, it doesn’t mean you should hike up your prices sky-high. You may be the only landscaping business in town right now, but once any sort of competition moves in, your clients will be gone faster than Thanksgiving turkey if you don’t treat your customers right to begin with. So, make sure you’re always setting your prices fairly, to create loyal clients.
As with all things, you will at times need to raise your prices due to changes in the market. You cannot be expected to keep your prices the same when the cost of labor or goods rises. This will only hurt you in the long run. If customers ask, politely explain what went into the thought process behind raising the price of the service. Customers will understand and continue to work with you if you offer fair explanations when needed and raise prices reasonably.
Making Sure Your Team is Accommodating
Lastly, make sure that your team knows how to be accommodating. We’ve all heard the old phrase that the customer is always right – but we also know that sometimes the customer can be a pain in the butt. Customers will remember the service you provided them when something went wrong, over how you treated them when everything was going smoothly. Always make sure you and your team handle customer service issues with care and patience. Even if the customer is in the wrong – there is always a way to handle it graciously and come out ahead. If it’s not the customer’s fault, then you better hope that you find a way to fix it quickly.
Many times, the best reviews – and most loyal clients – are actually customers who had a not-so-great experience – but the team went above and beyond to fix it. Making a potentially horrid situation for the customer – a pleasant one.
Using These Tips to Always Help Clients
I hope this list helps, and I hope you continue to refer back to it when you are taking care of clients. A great reputation is not built overnight. Sometimes it takes years before you build up a clientele that is loyal to you. But every single interaction does make a difference. Especially considering, (sadly) clients are much more likely to talk about and leave a review for a bad experience than a good one. So, it’s up to you to make sure every interaction the client has with you is as great as it gets. Most importantly, if anything does go wrong, make sure you go above and beyond to make it right!
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Frequently Asked Questions
Out of these, which category is most important to provide to clients?
Don’t think of the tools as individual tools, where you would prioritize one over the other. All of these tools fall under the broader umbrella of customer service, and your business needs to provide great customer service to guests every time, period. So instead of debating which one of these tools is the most important to provide to guests, think of them each as different stages of the overall interaction, and make sure you are providing all of them!
What is the most important thing to do when I mess up with a client?
The most important, even over giving them a discount or free service, is to acknowledge what went wrong and take full ownership of it – then apologize and tell them how you will make it right. The client is likely already frustrated that something went wrong, the last thing they need to hear is excuses or how some third party messed up. Just take ownership apologize and move forward. That’s it.
To learn more on how you can start your own landscaping business, check out my startup documents here.
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Meet Shawn Chun: Entrepreneur and Landscape Business Fan.
I’m a happy individual who happens to be an entrepreneur. I have owned several types of businesses in my life from a coffee shop to an import and export business to an online review business plus a few more and now I create online resources for those interested in starting new ventures. It’s demanding work but I love it. I do it for those passionate about their business and their goals. That’s why when I meet a landscape business owner at a job site, driving down the road or anywhere else I see myself. I know how hard the struggle is to retain clients, find good employees and keep the business growing all while trying to stay competitive.
That’s why I created Landscaping Business Boss: I want to help landscape business owners like you build a thriving business that brings you endless joy and supports your ideal lifestyle.