How many times per day do you get questions from your lawn care customers that you can’t answer?
During my first year with my own lawn care business, there was barely a day that I wasn’t stumped by a question from one of my customers.
“How much grass seed should I put on my lawn?”
“How do I get rid of weeds in my Bermuda Grass?”
“One of my apple trees died last year and the one remaining didn’t bear fruit this year. Do I need a male and female apple tree to have fruit?”
These were some early questions I remember being asked during the first few days of my lawn care business back in 1992. I remember being stumped. The first two questions were pretty easy to answer and I got extra jobs doing seeding and weed eradication for two brand new customers.
The third question concerning the apple tree was more difficult to answer and I referred this customer to an aborculturalist. The customer was happy and I still got to do her lawn all summer.
I realized early on that customers don’t expect you to be a lawn care expert when they ask you questions. Being a lawn care business owner doesn’t mean you have all the answers but it does mean you should answer to the best of your ability and if you don’t know the answer, you should tell the customer that you will find out the best answer.
I recently had an experience with a company I wanted to do business with. This was a technical company (nothing to do with lawn care) and I had a couple questions for them. So, I called their toll-free number to speak with a representative. I asked a few question which she was able to answer. Then, I asked a question about a service they don’t offer and I also asked if they would offer it in the future.
“I JUST WORK HERE, SIR.”
“I just work here, sir” was the answer from this company’s sales representative. That answer was rude customer service (BTW, the company was NOT Microsoft) and it cost them a customer. Part of my questioning was designed to determine if I wanted to become a client of this company. The sales representative was unable to answer my basic question and then put me off by telling me she just worked there and had no authority nor desire to find an answer for me.
In effect, the question she answered was: “do I want to do business with your company?” The answer she gave me was, “No, because we won’t be able to answer your most basic questions.”
As developers of the Start A Lawn Care Business guidebook package, our job is to answer your questions about starting and operating a lawn care business. If you are just getting started or if you’ve been in it a year or two you may have a lot of questions about how to get more customers and make more money. The lawn care business guidebooks will answer most of your questions about advertising, pricing, estimating, doing the work, and which equipment to buy. If you have other questions, let us know. We are happy to help and you will NEVER get an answer of “I JUST WORK HERE, SIR.”
The lawn care business guidebooks and software package is available through our website: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com