"A PERFECT CUT, EVERY TIME"
We have always prided ourselves
on giving customers a perfectly cut lawn. With professional
commercial lawn mowing equipment, a good knowledge on how to use
that equipment, and a sense of professionalism about our work, there
is no reason why a customer's lawn should not look great every
single time we cut the grass.
I remember clearly one day
when we were working a customer's lawn. This customer had been with
us for 3 years. He was a once per week customer and it was a quick
cut. The problem was that he had a propensity for being very
finicky about his grass. The lawn care company that serviced the
account before us had been fired for giving an imperfect cut one
time.
As we point out in the
lawn care
business program, we will often put a premium on the the prices we
charge and the estimates we give to customers that are going to be
difficult to work with.
Well, on this one day, I was
using a brand new commercial walkbehind lawn mower. It was a
floating deck system which was different than what I was used to.
The upper part of his lawn had several undulations. For a brief
moment, I took my eye off of my work and the results were bad...I
scrapped his lawn. the grass was completely gone and there was
nothing but bare earth. It was a patch about two feet wide and a
foot long. It looked bad, really bad. As I watched the dust cloud
kicked up by the lawn mower drift away with the breeze, I could
almost see the payment for this yard fly away too.
Luckily, it was a fescue lawn. I
always keep a small bucket of seed in the truck and on that day I
happened to have half a bale of straw on the trailer. Without
hesitation, I threw some seed down on the bare spot and covered it
with straw.
He always inspected his lawn as
we worked so I walked him over to the patch. With a smile, I said:
"I made a mistake on your lawn." After apologizing, I told him what
had happened and I showed him what I had done to remedy the
situation with the high quality grass seed and the straw. He was
mad, it was obvious. However, he paid in full and we did not lose
the customer.
The lesson learned here is that
you will probably occasionally make mistakes in your work. We all
do that occasionally. It is good to own up to your mistakes and
take responsibility if you make a mistake on a customers yard. If
he had found the patch before I showed it to him and if I had not
already reseeded it and covered it with straw, we would have lost a
good paying customer.
The Lawn Care Business program show you dozens of methods of getting
maximum profit from each customer. We also give you a tremendous amount
of resources for bidding and estimating Lawn Care and Landscaping jobs.
This is just one of hundreds of tips found
in the
pages of the
Lawn Care Business
training program.
You may freely distribute this Lawn Care Business tip providing all
links
remain in place and it is printed in its entirety inclusive of this
notice.
