Interior: Have extra vinyl saucers, pot covers and sleeves in your vehicle for new plants (poinsettias and other holiday colors) that have been installed and were overlooked. Brrr! Fill water machines from indoor faucets only. Lukewarm water is best for the tropical plants, and for the water machines too. Sleeve all plants before leaving the warehouse/greenhouse [...]
This busy time of year there is even more to do and seemingly less time to do it in. Pretty soon offices will close or close early for the holidays shortening our workweek, poinsettias are everywhere and need attention and we begin to kick into high gear. How can we do a good job and still [...]
When should you pass a complaining customer on to your supervisor? Only on those rare occasions that you can't deal with it yourself. Since customer service people, such as ourselves, are the first line of defence, we should handle as many of the everyday concerns as we can. We are the ones with the constant weekly [...]
After a day when everything seems to be going wrong, you may find it difficult to believe, but most customer complaints can be resolved. If you're going through a phase in which you can't seem to handle complaints in a satisfactory way, you may be skipping one or two fundamental steps in the problem-solving process. Take [...]
Monet - Water Lillies Color Certain colors are regarded as "hot". Bright reds, oranges, yellow, and gold fall into this category. These are exciting colors, which tend to catch the eye and have an enlivening effect. When used in combinations of these colors, the statement can be exciting — but if overused or poorly [...]
Our installation crew disappoints us. Our supervisor is late to work and fails to have the paperwork ready when she arrives. One of our team members is blocking us in so we can't leave on our route. Occasions to criticize others arise many times during the course of a workday, yet few people know how to [...]
5 Signs it's Time to Replace Plants Maybe it's time for new plants? Many of us choose plantscaping because we love plants. When a plant suddenly dies in our care we grieve the loss, for in some unique way we have lost a friend. Perhaps harder yet for us is when a plant has [...]
If you want fewer customers, just be as inflexible as possible. Being inflexible means saying "no" as often as possible to customers. It means being surprised by anything that differs from the norm: an unusual request or question from a customer, an angry caller or the accent of a non-English speaking customer. It's the "We've always [...]
Good customer service communications flow smoothly and effortlessly. We get a call, or our contact approaches us with a problem or a complaint and we let them know what we will do to correct things and deal with the situation. Simple. Yet sometimes you can tell things have gotten off on the wrong foot and gone [...]
When you are having a conversation with your supervisor, client or fellow technician, do you pay attention with your entire body and mind? Or do you find yourself just catching key phrases and editing what they say through your internal filters? Active listening uses a variety of our senses, including sight and sound, in order to pay [...]
