Are you asking for customer feedback after every job? Not some jobs, but all of them?  

Gathering feedback from every client provides you with insight that will help your company understand your customers wants, needs and the necessary information to help you stay relevant in your industry. Surveys are important tools for improving your business and ensuring your customers send you referrals.

Over the years I’ve found customer surveys to be one of the most consistent and effective ways for receiving customer feedback. You can get great insight with only three questions: 

1. How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
2. What’s the biggest factor in your answer?
3. What can we improve on?

There are a lot of platforms available for surveys, but two that I have found to be easy to use and cost effective are:

Survey Monkey

Survey Sparrow 

Customer feedback is one of the best tools we have - take advantage of it!

Do you have a client that needs to be fired? Does that question cause you to recoil?

I know it seems counter-intuitive. You feel like you can’t possibly do that; you need the work and you don't want to tarnish your reputation. But hear me out.

I’m not saying you should cancel a contract mid-season, though that may be appropriate at times. What I’m talking about is reviewing contracts at the end of the season and rating them based on a few different criteria to ensure it makes sense to continue a working relationship with them. 

We can often feel like we need to take all the work that comes our way because, well, we need to make money. The problem with that mindset is that we can get booked up with small jobs that aren’t especially profitable and then don’t have time to complete the bigger, more profitable jobs that come our way.

An article from Landscape Management listed these six variables to take into account before you renew contracts:

Revenue...

When we started working with Ryan at Mountview Landscaping, I asked him if he had a budget that they work from and review on a monthly basis, and was pleasantly surprised to hear his answer was yes. You may remember that we interviewed him last year about what they track, why they track it and the difference it has made in how the business is doing overall, as well as the impact it has made for him personally.

All of his insight was compiled into two blog posts and we felt it was worth revisiting. Check out part one below.

Grant: What do you currently measure on a weekly, monthly and annual basis and why?

Ryan: During the winter we track maintenance hours for snow, additional job hours from snow events, salt and ice melt product use on a weekly basis. This translates to lawn maintenance contracts during the summer season.  

We have people on a fixed schedule for snow with staff on duty 24/7. From a business point of view it just makes sense for us. We have people...

As I’m sure you will assume by the title of the book, Measure What Matters is about figuring out what really matters and how to measure it.

Author John Doerr does this through the use of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), a revolutionary approach to goal-setting, to make tough choices in business. Through a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, John demonstrates the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations.

You’ll learn the 9 steps to implement the OKR system, get an in-depth look at the 4 super powers that come from using the OKR method and learn how to build a positive culture within your organization.

An added bonus in the book is the checklist at the back to help you walk through implementing the OKR process the first time, as well as some tips to make the system work for you. I loved all of the different examples given because it helps you to see the process in action. 

For a more in depth...