Customer Service (or not)

In mid summer I contracted with a tree service company to trim  branches on one of my oak trees that is brushing against a neighbor’s home, and to fertilize another large oak tree on my property. This was a company I had used before with excellent service and follow-through. They have changed.

For weeks I heard nothing from the company. Then I got a call from their office telling me the crew would be out the next day to do the trimming. Great! They never showed. I never got a call. A week later I called to inquire what happened. After some run-around I was informed that the oak trees would not be trimmed until the temperature cooled down to prevent oak wilt. No apology for not showing up when promised. I accepted the explanation and anxiously awaited the chill of fall. Fall has arrived and still no crew.

On October 30 I received an invoice dated October 29 for fertilizing performed October 28 (which had not happened). On November 3 a man with a truck showed up to fertilize the big oak. I asked about the trimming. The response? “I do what I am told to do and don’t know nothing about the trimming”. He made no attempt to get any further answer or even to take my question back to the shop.

Yesterday morning I called the company to ask about the trimming schedule. The response? “I don’t know. I’ll have to call you back this afternoon”. The afternoon came and went – no response.

Lessons businesses should learn from this experience:

1. Don’t make promises you can’t or won’t keep.
2. Follow up and keep customers informed.
3. Don’t ever send an invoice before service is performed – even if you are at the end of a month!
4. Don’t ever send an invoice with wrong information. By the way, I didn’t tell you that the invoice had a computer generated invoice number that had been scratched out and replaced with a hand-written one.
5. Train your employees that they always are representatives of your business and need to be ever helpful to customers. If they are asked a question they can’t answer, they should promise to have someone in the company provide the answer – and then follow up to make sure it happens.
6. Maintain a master schedule of work to be performed so scheduling questions can be answered.

I’m still waiting!

Will Limkemann
440-871-0976