Having been interviewed by many different boards of directors over the past few months, I’ve realized how important it is for contractors to be interviewed during the decision making process.
There are many difficult questions that are asked of us that anyone other than a representative of Gelderman Landscape Services would be unable to answer. Without the interview step, how can our clients be certain that Gelderman is the right choice?
Although there are many questions that frequently get asked I wanted to share the top 5 that our clients ask us on a regular basis.
1. Why should the corporation award the contract to Gelderman?
We’ve implemented systems that create a seamless line of communication between our customers and our account managers enabling us to help our clients, often before they know they have a problem.
We have been particularly successful with helping Property Managers, Boards of Directors and Business Owners who are concerned with lack of communication, frustrated with poor quality of service, or disappointed with lack of suggestions for enhancing curb appeal.
2. Should there be an issue, who will our main point of contact at Gelderman be?
Each of our properties are assigned an Account Manager who will be your main point of contact with Gelderman Landscape Services 12 months a year. Your Maintenance Account manager is responsible for quality control, training of staff and is the main point of contact between property manager, business owner or home owner and Gelderman.
3. Is Gelderman like other companies, do they employ all students?
Gelderman staff is made up of approximately 80-90% full time staff who remain part of the team year round and 10-20% students. All of Gelderman’s Crew Leader and Lead Hand positions are filled by fulltime, year round staff members.
4. What is your response time during the winter months?
Our Account Manger’s coordinate their schedules to ensure we are monitoring the weather 24/7
As part of our Red Carpet Care program we promise to respond to any situation or email within 4 business hours, we promise to show up when we say we will and we promise to keep you, and our employees safe at all times.
5. How will Gelderman make our property more beautiful?
Having knowledgeable, well trained staff and state of the art equipment we are able to provide corner to corner property care. This includes proper pruning and plant care, edging of sidewalks and gardens, ensuring irrigation systems are running efficiently, offering suggestions for property enhancements and utilizing the most up to date turf health practices.
As I look back on how often I have not been interviewed by boards and how often the new client relationships went sour I wonder, could this have been avoided by a pre-contract interview? Townhome condo’s generally allocate 30% of their operating budget to landscaping and snow. If a company were hiring a staff member for 30% of their payroll how many questions would need to be asked?
Post contributed by Kate Terpstra, Business Development Manager
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