Recently, I had a couple of dimwits from our lawn care company show up for aeration and seeding for our whole lawn. I was promised by the office that they would be using the same system of planting the grass seed as sod farmers do; in nice neat little rows.
But after about 5 minutes, they packed up and left, leaving a note on my door about how to care for my newly seeded lawn. Since we live in town, our front yard is all of 160 sq/ft
However there were a number of glaring problems:
- They left all of the chunks of mud from the aeration all over my sidewalk and the walk up to my front porch.
- They used a rotary spreader that flung the seed far and wide, right into my flower beds. I have enough problems controlling the weeds without some Dopey the Dwarf planting seeds in it.
- They did not do the backyard
Sigh....
I called the office to complain. The lady was very nice on the phone as I explained my my issues. She assured me that all would be made right. (They are coming later today, so we will see)
A few minutes later, I get an email with the date they are coming and announcing my fre.e service. and they really over-used the word fre.e. In the subject line 2x and in the body of the email 3x.
"
There ain't nuthin' fre.e about this, Bubba. I paid for a service and you did not deliver.", I thought to myself. My service reminder email this morning also mentioned fre.e 5x.
The next email I got was a survey about their service. One Star and I listed the 3 items above.
No reply from anyone.
Contrast my lawn service issues with one of my carpet cleaning screw-ups.
Yesterday, one of my employees was out sick, so we had to reschedule his work. It was a busy schedule with about 8 appointments on it. The CSR in my office rescheduled all of the appointments with no complaints from the clients.
Except one.
Evidently, she did not reschedule the first job of the day. Not good....
He was hoppin' mad, and I don't blame him. Luckily (?) they have been clients for about 10 years and this is the only time we have screwed up.
So I went to my go-to solution in this case. I FEDEX'd him a cake.
And not just any cake. A Smith Island Cake, which is Maryland's state cake. (Who knew, right?). Google it.
It gets delivered today. If my past record with FEDEXing cakes is any indicator, we will be cleaning for him again, soon.
Do you see the difference?
My client got a fre.e cake. (and an apology)
I got... well... fre.e nuthin'
But here is something you can have for fre.e:
My Monthly Minnie Mouster Class
On August 31st I will be doing a fre.e training on how to become and ACE in the eyes of your clients and prospects.
An ACE has Authority, Celebrity and Expert all rolled into one. It is the marketing trifecta! Being an ACE means you are irresistible to your prospects.
You do want to be irresistible, don't you?
To become an irresistible ACE, hop on this training:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qDmSuQdwSYWKL1fFuVTOmQ
oh... and BTW... the training is fre.e