Bruce’s View: Sweat the small stuff

Bruce Wilson

Landscape companies take great pride in delivering a quality product. And we love nothing better than the big job or marquee project. It takes a great organization to execute the complex projects, and when we master those, it’s good for our brand.

Equally important to our reputation for service are the little things that affect how customers perceive us. When neglected, details can destroy our customer’s experience and threaten our relationship. That’s why we should train our teams to sweat the small stuff.

Do any of these sound familiar?

• A project manager falls short on finishing the detailing of a design/build job.
• Account managers fail to follow up on requests for nuisance items from important clients.
• Crews miss details that are the customer’s pet peeves.

The worst part is customers often don’t call you out on these little glitches. But they become disgruntled and, out of the blue, you receive a cancellation notice when you thought everything was going well.

We resent high-maintenance customers, but they make our teams better. We should learn from them. The things they constantly call to our attention are happening to the silent customers, too. Never take your customers for granted. Fix their small problems with the same enthusiasm you use to tackle their large ones. And remember: It’s the little things that generate the biggest results.