Being the EASIEST To Do Business With-Professional Client Experience

Client Experience

When trying to grow a landscape business, do you realize you’re competing in the category of “client experience”? 

Yes, I know, you’re competing with other businesses on a lot of levels:

• pricing
• capability – types of work your team & equipment can do
• availability – when you can fit the work into your schedule
• marketing & brand awareness – getting more leads

But there’s another one that I want to explore today. Being the easiest person/business to do business with. Also known as “client experience”.

I think a lot of the time we are so focused on our team, our skills, our equipment, our pricing, etc, that we forget one of the most important things:

Our client’s experience.

What does it feel like to them to work with us??

Pause for a moment and reflect.

How would you label your client’s experiences with you?

How does it feel to communicate with you?

To get a quote from you.

To get a job done with your team in their backyard.

To pay the final invoice to you.

Are you feeling proud of the client experience you’ve built?

Or a bit ashamed?

Would you want to be a client of your business?

Either way, there’s always room to improve and get better at client experience.

Let’s dig into some good ways to look out for your client’s experience in working with you.

Let’s make it less frustrating and more delightful!

We work with hundreds of contractors all across North America, and here are some of the things I’ve gotten to see that I admire in terms of building a solid client experience.

Availability of information

This not only improves your client experience, but saves you a boatload of time.

Make a list of the most frequently asked questions you get, and answer them. Put the answers everywhere. On your website, social media, emails, all over the place!

I know many contractors cringe at the idea of putting pricing on their website. But let me tell you, when you are the customer trying to figure out what the vision you have costs, it’s frustrating. Pretty much the only way you can get that info is by getting estimates, and that takes a lot of time, energy, appointments, etc.

Why not just make it easier?

Clients hate feeling embarrased. Believe it or not, most clients hate wasting your time. And one of the most embarrassing things is when they schedule an appointment with you, explain their vision to you, and then realize that what it’ll cost is far beyond their reach.

It’s embarrassing.

Free access to info can prevent a lot of that, and save you a lot of time.

Here’s what Tussey Landscaping did to share their pricing with the world.

Clients just wanna know.

What’s it going to cost!?

If it’s 10X my budget, cool! Now I know!

And I’ve seen many a client buckle down and save like crazy until they had the money needed to do the work. Once they knew what they wanted cost.

Free access to information…

Streamlining the experience

Find every way possible to streamline the experience for your customer.

If you’re still doing handwritten or Word doc quotes, making the client print off, sign, take a picture of, and send a copy of the signed contract back to you…. Oh! and then mail you a check or physically meet up so they can pay the bill…

Sigh…

That process makes me tired.

Use a software to streamline the proposal signing and payment process.

Use card on file for recurring maintenance clients to automatically pay their bills.

Just bake the processing fees into your cost of doing business and pricing, and make it easier for your client to pay you. They are paying that processing fee. Not you. And in the process everyone’s life is a bit easier.

Communication

Communication is a big one! Nothing is worse as a client than wondering “What’s next?” “Where are they?” “When are they coming?” “When do I get my quote back?” “What did the crew do today?”

So, do a 5 star job of communicating, and you will have a 5 star client experience. Some practical ways to do this are

• tell clients exactly when you’ll have the quote back to them (the sooner the better!)
• Set up appointment reminders
• Have a communication plan as a job kicks off, progresses, and is completed. Things like daily updates from the crew leader as the job is going on are huge.
• Set expectations before things happen. (I want to make sure you know that building this project will destroy your beautiful yard. We’ll have to stage materials in your driveway, etc etc)

The last 10%

Finally, remember to go above and beyond. Send them a thank you gift after the job is done. Send them a gift card to wash their vehicle after all the dust settles. Clean up well at the end of each day. Drop “excuse our mess” door hangers and gift cards at all their surrounding neighbors.

These little things are what make working with your company a memorable experience. They are what drives 5 star reviews, raving fans, and referrals. It shows you really care.

At the end of the day, if you simply say what you’re going to do, and do what you said you’d do – you’ll be one of the best companies to hire in you region.

Be professional.

Show you care.

Set expecations.

Streamline the process.

Communicate well.

Be the easiest to do business with, and you will win.

I just did a full webinar on the topic of “4 Ways to Close More Jobs” with Ray Rodenbough from Unilock the other week. In it I went into more detail on how to embody these principles into your sales process, and how that’ll help you win more jobs.

And win that deal profitably.

Give it a watch here.

Until next time!

Cheers!

Weston Zimmerman

SynkedUP co-founder and CEO