The holidays can be a difficult time to help clients when you’re trying to celebrate with your own families.
However, there will come a time where you get the 911 phone call.
One of our 2014 Landscaper of the Year finalists, David Land with Tulsa Landscape, went and fixed a leaking irrigation system on New Year’s Day for a client one year.
Another one of our 2015 Landscaper of the Year finalists, Russ Irvin with TDH Landscaping, has received midnight phone calls about his H-2B employees needing assistance.
Everyone deals with emergency situations and phone calls whether they come from clients or employees. However, it’s all about how you handle those situations that can be the difference in being an OK landscaper versus a great landscaper.
Setting up an emergency line while office hours are closed is vital to any landscaping business. Landscapes are living and breathing pieces of art, and irrigation systems break, water lines bust, driveways need to be plowed and plants need to be watered.
Landscapers will always close the office for a few days around the holidays, but having an emergency line can help keep a constant line of communication open. Giving clients that number makes them feel special and important. It creates a relationship of trust and respect, which can keep a client coming back for more.
Set up an emergency line either to the office with a redirected voicemail to your cell phone or have the emergency line be a cell phone of someone in the company. The cell phone could be passed around between you and your foreman, so the situation doesn’t always have to fall on the same person every day.
