Reference no: EM133190252

Case: Handling service breakdowns at AAA landscaping

Background

You are the owner of AAA landscaping, a small company in Orlando, Florida, that specializes in maintenance of lawns. Much of your business is through word of mouth advertising. Once a contract is negotiated, portions of it are subcontracted out to other companies (e.g sprinkler system repair and pesticide services)Recently, you went to the home of Stu Murphy to bid on resetting his lawn. He obtained several other bids, but yours was the lowest. You arranged for work to begin to remove old grass and replace it with Saint Augustine grass sod that he requested. As part of the contract, Stu also asked that some basic maintenance be done, e.g hedge and tree trimming, hauling away of old decorative wooden logs around flowerbeds, and general sprucing up of front area of the house bracket clothes. In addition., fertilizer and pesticide were to be applied within two weeks. Stu signed the contract on Wednesday and the work was to be completed by Saturday, when he had planned a party.

Your role

You were pleased to get the contract worth over $1200. This is actually the third or fourth contract in the same subdivision, because a word of mouth advertising. Your employees completed the initial removal and replacement, weeding and pruning on Friday and you received full payment on Monday. You received a call on Tuesday afternoon from Stu stating that several trees were not trimmed to his satisfaction, debris covering decorative rocks along hedges was not removed as agreed, and bags of clippings had been left behind. Because of other commitments, it was only on Friday that you sent someone out to finish the job. On Saturday's Stu left another message on your answering machine to inform of unfinished work. You did not get around to returning his call. Stu called again on Monday, repeating the message he had left before and reminding you that the contract called for pesticide and fertilizer to be applied to the lawn. You called back and said that someone would be out the next day. Again, other commitments kept you from following. Stu called on Wednesday and left a fourth message on the answering machine. He said he was getting irritated at not getting callbacks and action on his needs. You did not respond to Stu's call but sent someone out on Thursday to take care of pending work. It has been several days since the work was completed and you assume that Stu is now satisfied since you heard nothing else from him.

a. Based on the information provided, on a range of 1- 5 (1 for very poor and 5 for excellent), how have you done on providing service to Stu? Explain your answer.

b. Are you sure Stu will give a good recommendation to friends and family about you? Why or Why not?

c. What could you have done differently to improve your customer service?