slap in the face.

[treeman82]

I was working with a friend today at one of his places. This particular house is a place he has been working at for 22 years. He does the grass, the tree work, the mulch, the pruning, and pretty much anything else outside except for the spraying, and the plowing (gave that up a few years ago). He has been dealing with the same owners for 22 years. When they call him up and need something done, its a matter of "Just do it" as opposed to "what will it cost?" I went down there with him 3 times this year specificaly for storm damage calls. 1 was an ash which fell down across the road, another was a spruce which uprooted this spring, another was a catalpa which had snapped off, and then a fourth we did a couple of weeks ago was a small ash which snapped off half way up. Anywho, today we go there to do the last clean-up and when we drive up to the house we see that a little cherry right by the road had been removed. No big deal because it could very well have been the town. We start doing our work and find a bunch of different trees with red and green tapes. We got there at maybe 8:20 or so. Around 10:00 Ira Wickes from Spring Valley (other side of the river) shows up with 3 trucks and they start walking around without saying anything to us. They started working on the job which probably sold for ~$10,000. The client never asked for a price or anything like that. It's not my account, but I was pretty mad because that was work that I would have been involved in, and my buddy has an even shorter temper than I do... but he kept his mouth shut for the most part about it. I guess customer loyalty is really a thing of the past.

 

[Stumper]

That doesn't feel good--but then I have some customers that I "stole" from competitors. I didn't go out and bad-mouth the other guys. I showed up on time and did a good job and became their first choice. :alien:

 

[pbtree]

Wow - that kinda thing always sits a little funny with me. I am an old fashioed loyal sort, and I bend over backwards to take care of the old time customers. It always hurts somehow when they change and there is no explanation as to why - I wonder what I did to mess it up, etc.

Then again, it does open up the chance to work on a new customers place!

 

[MasterBlaster]

It's all water off a duck's back. Ya know?

 

[Dadatwins]

Would probably make a phone call or personal appearance to homeowner just to say 'what went wrong' just to get a feel for what happened. Granted this does happen all the time, I have taken jobs and had them taken from me, but 22 years is a long time to have the same customer and get dropped without some kind of explaination. Just my opinion.

 

[P_woozel]

It could be an issue of perception, I've done jobs for people they were quite satisfied but only pruning, find out later they had a removal done by another company, when questioned they thought we did only pruning. Also done removal work and customers would assume we didnt do pruning. Like Butch said just ducky.

 

[glens]

... a fourth we did a couple of weeks ago ... today we go there to do the last clean-up...

Perhaps the two weeks of time passing between starting and finishing the cleanup was a factor.

 

[P_woozel]

I'm guessing they did nothing at all to make their client unsatisfied, the big outfit moved in and obviously made a presentation that wooed the customer, maybe their client wanted a large project done at one time and felt they need a big outfit, maybe some sales"arborist" got their number fromn a market list and had them pegged from the getgo. I say don't get upset, watch and see what goes down when the other outfit does the job and then ask the client a couple of freindly questions and retain your customer. :blob5:

 

[treeman82]

Not my customer. We cleaned up the broken ash tree a couple of weeks ago. Today we were there to do the leaves and pick up sticks.

 

[trzz]

just remember every new customer is someone elses lost client. I have been expensive and got the job and cheap and lost it. Who knows who or does what for whom. This is the game. The best gambler still looses at the casino's.

 

[treeman82]

Honestly Erik, I have no idea. I guess I won't hear anything about this for at least another couple of weeks, if not months.

 

[Newfie]

Seems like some facts might be in order before jumping to rash conclusions. Without any facts as to why the other company got the job, I don't see where the "slap" is, especially to your face.(not even your customer) Take a deep breath and move on with life.

 

[geofore]

Honestly Erik, I have no idea. I guess I won't hear anything about this for at least another couple of weeks, if not months.

If you don't ask you won't hear anything for a while and then only second hand. Next, did you/your boss let the customer know you do that kind of work before it was done by someone else? Best let the customer know you'd like to bid on that kind of work if and when it comes up again. Customer may think of you as the landscape guys and not tree guys. Maybe you need to mail out a Christmas mailer explaining to your customers all the work you can do.

 

[bottlefed89]

Yea, I lost a decent sized take down a few weeks back, they took down 3 pretty big pines. Worst part is it was right across the street from my house. Only thing that made me happy about it was that it was a pretty big company around here, and they looked like a bunch of idiots. they took down the 2 smaller pines first, but then had to get a bigger(taller) bucket truck from another company and come back the next day to finish. I know I could have climbed and got em down as fast as these guys did with their bucket(s). They had 5 trucks there, and no one had any PPE on. I thought about saying something, but passed. I don't know how these guys are in business with as many people and as much equipment as they had on a site where I would have had a rented or borrowed chipper, my flatbed f350, and one helper. I have very little experience compared to a lot of you guys, but I know I could have done as good of a job and aside from the 5 big trucks I could have looked just as professional, and a lot safer. Always sucks when someone else gets a job that hits close to home, but I guess I didn't market myself enough. Like other have mentioned, these folks didn't know I did removals; they thought I just trimmed trees. I didn't realize anyone only trimmed, but I guess they didn't know. Should be a lesson to you, and myself about making our services clear.
greg

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

ive had things like this happen to me many a time ,my pet hate is not pricing a job on a like for like basis ,i had a bid come in the other week ,fell 2 birch ,crown thin 3 oaks ,crown reduce 4 sycamore ,fell 2 sycamore ,anyway i submitted my bid never heard back ,took a drive over to see if work was done low and behold only half the work was done ,and won't be done [i spoke to the groundsman /lawn man] ,this was a commercial bid i received instructions as to what work they wanted via a letter ie the instruction's were in black and white ,either i was duped into giving a big price so a friend could get the job or they the clients are plain stupid/ignorant one or the other ,still it did make me angry