How not to cheese off your customer ...

Look at what a disappointed customer (not ours) wrote on a Facebook gardening thread. Her comment is in the red circle….

The “recommended gardener” who cleared “weeds” out of her greenhouse may have been a dumb guy. Maybe he was clueless. But in all fairness, did the customer specify exactly what she wanted done?

You may say, “ yes, she did specify. She asked him to remove the weeds”.

But that misses the zillion dollar question: What are weeds?

Have you thought about it? What are weeds exactly?

The simplest answer follows.

There can be no argument with this simple answer.

Weeds are simply plants YOU do not want growing in your garden.

Other people may actually like those plants. This is known in the garden trade as “What is one person’s garden treasure is another person’s poison”.

Most of our customers are office workers or work in fields that have nothing to do with understanding gardens. We often get asked to remove plants that have value. And by that I mean financial value as well as botanical and aesthetic value. Or more importantly, environmental value Or plants that are edible. Or which other cultures or people “in the know” value highly.

There is a lot of good literature out there on the fascinating subject of “weeds”. A great example is Richard Mabey’s beautifully written and well-researched book, Weeds.

So getting back to our “recommended gardener” above and the unhappy customer….both are arguably in the wrong. He should have asked her, “What do she mean by weeds?” She should have specified what she meant, including pointing them out. He should have taken photos and highlighted exactly what he was going to remove.

If you give us your garden to work in, all expectations, like the above one, will be made clear.

All successful businesses operate on meeting expectations. I am very aware of that.

Contact Rod on 02102834953, servicing North Shore and Auckland, www.impressionz.co.nz