your best customer

[yorkpaddy]

who's your best customer, not necesarily the one you get the most money from, but your favorite one to do business with. I have a couple

The Mcguires, 7 acre property, I cut 4 of them for about $200. They are a really nice family and let me keep my dirtbike at their house sometimes.

Mr. Hull, small lawn $20, but he always pays on time and really likes me. He is a defense anylyst and I always get a world update when I see him.

Mr. Means, $35 lawn, pays on time. he's an admissions advisor for penn state and offered to help get me into that school.

[the point man]

One of the things which I've enjoyed most about the lawn business is dealing with (most of) my customers. For twenty-
three years, I was a police officer in a small but rough blue-
collar city, and rarely had the opportunity to make my "customers" happy. Quite the opposite, most times. You're
obviously young, and you're learning a valuable lesson which
should help you succeed throughout your life. Treat your customers as you'd treat your family and take time to talk with
them. Lots of guys on these sites don't spend time to BS with
the customers. Some just don't have the time due to the work-
load. But you are apparently doing that, and look at what you've
gained already: a place to store your dirt bike and possibly an
"in" at a prestigious school. Good luck in the future!

[yorkpaddy]

yeah, I love talking to the customers too.
I waste quite a bit of time talking to them, and its not like they keep bringing things up and i'm trying to leave, its a real conversation and I'm just lazy about work.

They respect me, its not like i'm the lawn guy, they take a personal interest in my life. I actually just remembered another customer offered to talk to a friend of his who was a prestigious RPI graduate to help me get in there. I didn't take either cusotmoer up on their offer, I went to a local state college (George Mason University).

[Toroguy]

Going solo can be a lonely day. A chat with a customer or two reminds me of what I am trying to accomplish, please the customer.

It is difficult to determine which customer is my favorite, so I'll say, all of them are. I have tweeked the route and client base to a more productive, profitable and socially compatible one. Toroguy, the socially compatible lawn service provider.

As yorkpaddy mentions chat time can be very profitable by networking. And as the point man notes, they are customers, not fleeing felons.

[ADMowing]

We agree! We really like to talk to our customers. I've said in many of my posts that the customer/lco relationship goes both ways. We mow in Florida where there are lots of retirees and THEY WANT TO TALK!!! One 80 year old lady likes to give us a hard time just 'cause it makes her day! We laugh and go on. She's had us for 3 years now. She's funny! She screamed at me one day for putting (free) mulch in her flower bed. I walked out and told her she was being mean. Then when we were done working, she came to the door and told me she loved me and said she was sorry! Each one is different though -- don't you think? They seem to tell us a lot of things they don't tell their social circles because we can't tell anyone they know!!

Our favorite customers are those who refer us out to the neighborhood. We were mowing in a neighborhood where a church friend of ours wanted our services. Two years after we'd been mowing in there another lco in the area sold his business to some people who took the customer's money and RAN! Some people drove by our rig and asked us to give them a quote. Then they saw our work and they have been putting out the word all over the place. We really appreciate them. We'll be doing a free month of mowing for them to show that appreciation.

Our other favorite customers are the ones who we don't have to virtually hunt down to get a payment. They pay promptly and are reliable. It is hard enough to do our jobs without having to deal with the logistics of collecting unpaid debts.

Without our customers, we wouldn't be here. So we really like them all, but the above are our favorites.

:)

[odin]

we have three custormers who are good custormers and we consider our freinds. we have done them since we went into business in 1996.
One ole boy is from virginia and his name is wood he is kin to the wood brothers of nascar.
He is a good ole boy invites us to his nascar parties and is despite being rich a good ole boy still.
We have a elderly black lady who gives us all the okra we can eat every summer ,to get okra around here in illnois you have to drive 1 and 1/2 hour south .
When she goes down there she stocks up on it and always gives us a ton of it.

Our favorite custormer is a gentleman born and rasied in our ancesstial country of scotland .
When he seen our last name and asked in his thick scottish broge were we scotsmen we made not only one of our best residental custormers ,but a true friend for life.
We have many we like and always take some time to talk to customers when they appoach us, but these three stand out over all of em.
And after working for a big company like gm for so long it is nice we can deal with people like this.

[Guardian]

My favorite customers are:

Not picky. never home, have simple yards and pay early!

[HLC]

I'll agree with Guardian!
I was talking to a friend the other day and he asked how the biz was going. I said that everything was good and that I may have to drop a few yards. Then I got to thinking, I don't know which ones I would drop. All of my customers are wonderful people. I have certain yards I like cutting more so than others but all of my customers are great.

[Turf Technologies]

I think i did my favorite today matter of fact. When i did him two weeks ago,(last lawn for the day) he brought me out a drink and one for him.We sat on his porch and chatted for 30mins, talking about the old days ,where he summers in Maine etc etc.You knwo shooting the breeze.

Had somthing funny happen eysterday too me as well, we have two lawns side by side and the lady on the left comes out raniting and raving that i go to fast ,missed a section here there not happy with me and nor is there neighbor. So i go next door to fix the problem they tell me no no no its not true if somthings wrong we come to you, dont listen to her she is crazy mentally. Your doing a good job dont worry about it they say. And this same man cussed me out a year ago over his sprinklers . Now he really likes me and my work and takes care of me with tips can some candy. Talks like a salior too which is funny.


Toroguy your right, when your alone its nice to talk to someone here and there.

[Scotlawncare]

I have a few you can call "Best" customers. One of which i cut weekly and am always getting a check when i leave. The customer has spent several thousand dollars with me over the past two years doing various small landscaping projects and such. She found out that my aniversery is this saturday and that my wife and I were going out. She then booked us a room in one of the downtown hotels for the night so we could enjoy a kid free night to ourselves.

I wish alot more of my customers would think of us a people and not some hired hand that bills them too much for work.

[cantoo]

My favorite cusomer is one who I no longer have now. She sunbathes nude. The next favorite of mine is actually the neighbour of our customers, she likes to spend quality time in the hot tub while we are cutting next door, in full view. On these properties the money is secondary.

[TFL]

a 6 acre R/c club park. mow once a week mainly wide open except for the runway for R/C planes. allow me to be on their sponser list at their National meet and compition for 3 free cuts per year. other company pay alot of money to get on this list and have signs up at the club.

[NewbieOwner]

Now that I'm on my own, I've got this great lady who was one of my very first customers (all are my first right now, but she was #4)

So far, she's had me in to do a spring cleanup, did some bed work for her at that time too. Tossed in a little free pruning just because one of her trees was pissing me off (and she mentioned she didn't like how it looked) The next day I was back to prune the rest of her trees for $$$, 2 days later I was back with an aerator. She's booked in for weekly mowing, "on whatever day suits you best dear, just keep it looking neat ok!" And she's been mulling over topdressing/overseeding...

Had an old guy at my old company, he was sick as a dog, every time I was there (mowing and snow removal) I'd ask how he was doing "Not so good today" was always the reply. Poor guys had more strokes and heart attacks than I can possibly try to keep track of. I'm told he's been fighting cancer for the last 10 years too... But every week, he was out with cookies and diet coke (we all hated diet coke, but thanked him for it anyway; the girls in the office loved it) Got Xmas cards at christmas, he knew our birthdays... Just a great old guy, picky as heck tho, miss 2 blades of grass and you'd be coming back to mow it again :mad:

Andrew

[SLS]

I had to let go of my best, and very first, customer today. :(

This was the first time I ever dropped anyone, and man, it was hard.

When I started out (3 years ago) I bid on her 1 acre property and it is all hills (very steep), berms, dips, bumps, full o' trees, bad drainage,....you name it. Obviously I did not know the first thing about figuring in "The Difficulty/Time Factor". To make matters even worse, I underbid it by $10 or $15 dollars. As I was riding a 42" tractor, and had the extra time on my hands, it was ok. She was weekly, paid promptly, and was very nice to me.

She has about 1/4 acre "wooded" area at the back of her lot that had vinca minor groundcover that I had to weedeat the tops of weeds and grass out of occasionally. At first it was not too bad as the last guy had practically scalped it to the ground... (which was why he was her "last" guy). Now the vinca is about 6" tall (because I was extra-careful with it) and full of snakes and other creepy critters-so I was DREADING wading off into it again this year.

I graduated to a 60" Lazer last summer and this lot was TOTALLY unsuited for it. The least bit of dampness insured a "white knuckle" ride-from-hell and you had to cut this lawn in 10 different directions because of all the dips, bumps, berms, and swells. And of course the ditch was at the lowest part of the lot...and always wet...with water standing an inch or two in the spring.

Between the water, slippery slopes, and snake habitat that she wanted me to wade through I finally had to let it go.

I've been wanting to drop it ever since getting the Lazer and gaining about 35 lawns (all cherrypicked for the Lazer) but did not have the heart.

It has rained for several weeks now and tuesday I just started mowing in the rain to stay (for the most part) on schedule.

Today broke the camel's back and I let her go-explaining as nicely as I could as to why I had to do it.

She muttered "But you can't leave me...what am I going to do now?" and then she burst out crying! :cry:

Sometimes, just sometimes, I REALLY hate this job. :(

I just have to try to find someone around here to to take that lawn...

I just couldn't take the creeping, mowing from 10 different directions, slipping and sliding, and worrying about copperheads anymore.......

That's my "best customer" story for the day.

Sorry to be so long-winded....I just had to get it off of my chest......:(