This Has Happened to You, Right?

Amanda Thomsen

“Can you help me design these pots? I’m a landscape architect! Here are six super-modern, super-giant pots. It’s for a prairie-style house. I like cottage-style plantings! These pots will go in front of a bed with 45 Knockout Roses in it, so naturally I want more Knockout Roses in them!”

You’re not laughing, You’re shaking your head because you’ve been there, more times than you can count. How do you deal with these customers? If you offer container help, and most of you do, you’re committed to having to deal with this situation in some way. But how do you balance out one incredibly needy client, while considering the 15 perfectly normal, non-toxic customers you could be helping in the same time frame? It’s sooo much worse when it’s an industry professional (allegedly) that’s milking the system, right?

How do you deal with commercial clients that turn nightmare? Why is there a TV show about evil cats, but not rogue garden center customers? Do you keep a log of difficult customer interactions, both for comic relief and also for later training purposes? Do you have a set of rules for regular retail customers and another set for commercial customers? In my mind, if commercial customers are paying a lesser price, they aren’t entitled to the bells and whistles that retail customers are entitled to. Right?

Here’s more from that same customer—you know, the landscape architect: “I’m colorblind! But I want these plum angelonia FOR SURE!”

And: “I want you to help me because I don't know what I’m doing. Also, I know exactly what I want and will only parse out information when begged. Also, there’s an extreme thunderstorm coming and blowing dirt on us, right? When does your shift end … oh, five minutes ago? Is it important to have a hole at the bottom of the pot or is that A LIE? How many bags of soil do I need?” Some of this may be slightly embellished for the sake of condensing 40 minutes of hemming and hawing. But just SLIGHTLY.

Do you let one of your resources, a perfectly knowledgeable salesperson, waste away, trying to help this Rubik’s Cube of a customer or do you send one of the Loading Teens in to stand proxy? Do you tell them to make an appointment and then listen to them squeal because they need it done yesterday? This column of mine offers no answers, but DOES encourage you to work out this scenario with your sales crew in the off months to practice how you’d handle this situation. You can run practice drills; it’ll be fun.

“I want some Creeping Joanie” the landscape architect continues ... sure. At least that’s decipherable.

Then the customer gets their camera out. Sometimes that’s helpful, right? “Here is a photo of orange brick. Here is a photo of a wall. Here is a photo of a plinth. Oh heck, I can’t find those photos! It’s too hard to figure out my camera!”

Seriously, this is a scenario to practice. We have to make hay while the sun shines; we only get one chance to make a good impression and insert one more time-worn trite expression here. There’s really no excuse to not having a plan for these trying situations. Just like there’s no excuse for needing modern pots for a prairie-style house done in cottage-style planting. GP

Amanda Thomsen is now a regular columnist in Green Profit magazine. You can find her funky, punky blog planted at KissMyAster.co and you can follow her on Facebook and Twitter @KissMyAster.