Every quarter, the account manager at Baldi Gardens in Arlington, Texas, holds face-to-face visits, or care calls, with each of the company’s 80 accounts. This equates to roughly 320 in-person visits every year to make sure each customer is fully satisfied with his or her service. These care calls clearly take a lot of time, but it’s time well spent, according to Giuseppe Baldi, the company’s general manager.
“We’ve had people in the industry tell us that these calls are not worth doing, that they’re too time-consuming,” says Baldi, whose $1.4 million company offers 40 percent landscape design/installation, 30 percent maintenance, 20 percent irrigation and 10 percent lighting services to an 80 percent residential, 20 percent commercial clientele. “But it’s worth it to us.”
Baldi says this proactive approach helps the company develop close relationships with its customers — some who have been with the company for 25 years — and stay ahead of any problems that arise. It is also a driving factor behind the company’s 97 percent customer retention rate. Happy customers lead to more word-of-mouth referrals, which Baldi says is the company’s biggest source of leads.
“We learned over the years that just because a customer isn’t complaining doesn’t mean they are happy,” Baldi says. “It’s a lot less expensive to keep the customers we have than to find new ones.”
