Number one, business relationships are vital to the success in growing your businesses. These relationships form the foundation of who you are and how you are going to be viewed within your particular industry, like professional tree trimming. These relationships can only set you up for success if you deliver on your promises, or they can detract from your business if you don’t do a good job.
On average, people will tell 15 other people about a bad customer service experience and 1-2 about a good customer service experience. You can see, forming very solid, open, and honest business relationships are really the key foundation to growing your business. These business relationships produce warm referrals for your business that will translate into other relationships that will also generate referrals, and that’s really what you want. Referrals close at a much higher rate in the tree trimming business. Typically, the retention is much higher on referrals as well and you also normally see better margins on referral business versus soliciting business.
At the end of the day, new clients are the life blood to every organization. You have to ask yourself, are you better off growing your business from referrals or from soliciting? You don’t have to look far for the answer to that. The bottom line is, you take care of your customers, your customers will take care of you. Always keep in mind that everybody you deal with, whether it is your friend network or your business network, you are always forming business relationships, and those relationships can either help you grow your business, or they can detract from your business.
Most of our referrals in the tree pruning industry, especially from our residential side of the business, more often come from past customers. Once again this is why it is so important to make sure that you’re delivering top quality customer service. They’re either going to recommend you or they’re going to tell 15 other people that they would never use you again. From a business-to-business standpoint, professional organizations are another good avenue to create more business relationships. Networking through industry specific organizations create opportunities to develop strategic partnerships which will, in turn, promote additional leads and growth opportunities for your business.
The main thing when developing a relationship with a current client in order to generate good referral business is to be open, honest, and detailed about exactly who your ideal customer is, so that they have a good idea of who to recommend to you. The ideal customer for Embark is a residential tree client or commercial property owner who is looking for a high-quality tree care company that really is concerned about the overall health of their trees. If you are the person who is really budget-minded and your landscape or trees is not your number one priority, you’re probably not going to be a great fit for Embark. However, if you are that individual that takes a lot of pride in the outdoor appearance of your home or your business, concerned about the safety practices in which the work is completed, and you want to be sure the tree pruning is done properly by ISA and ANSI A300 best practices, then Embark is going to be the right company for you to call on. We will do a great job for you every time utilizing our years of tree trimming expertise in the safest manner possible with the health and longevity of your trees at the forefront of our goal set.
