I don’t think a company starts out to give bad service. They don’t generally have a space in their business plan that says, “Do things really badly”. I’m sure, well mostly sure, that most companies start out wanting to be the best out there and produce the best product and be the top of their field.
So where does this all go wrong?
Over the past several weeks my housemate and I have been trying to find a new lawn service. Our old lawn service, aka our lawnmower, broke – so we’re trying to find a company that can come out every other week and mow the lawn, pull the weeds and in general stop us from killing our rose bushes.
You would think this would be a fairly easy task to accomplish. You would be wrong.
We have, to date, called 9 different lawn companies.
6 failed to show up to evaluate our lawn,
2 came out – gave outrageous bids and never returned our calls and
1 came out, actually did the work, broke our window, left the garden door open so the dog could get out and then, surprising no one, never came back.
So we’re back to square one, looking for someone who will actually come out and talk to us about our lawn.
I don’t understand why this has been so difficult. We picked all of the businesses out of the yellow pages, I’m guessing each one of them wants to have a successful and prosperous business, and yet I couldn’t and wouldn’t recommend a single one of them to anyone who asked. Why?
Because they didn’t show up.
Half the battle is won right there. Showing up, showing that you care enough for someone’s business that you’re there to pick up the phone, there to make the bid, there to answer questions and in general are available to your customer.
Start and run your business with consistency, dedication, pride in a job well done.
And if you have a recommendation for a good lawn service in Springfield, Oregon? Let me know!
‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software
