What Chick-fil-A taught us about landscaping

Two years ago, my two oldest sons and I had the good fortune of visiting with Dan Cathy, chairman of Chick-fil-A. Dan and I have a mutual friend in Jeff McManus, who is the current landscape director at the University of Texas and former landscape director at Ole Miss. Jeff was gracious enough to set up a visit for us.

Ironically, a few months before our visit, I remember reading an article about the top fast-food restaurants based on store revenue. Don’t quote me on these numbers, but I remember something to this effect: The average Burger King store did around $1.8 million per year; jumping to number two was McDonald’s, around $3.5 million; and number three was Panera around $3 million per store. And Chick-fil-A, open six days a week, was just north of $7 million, more than doubling McDonalds.

Again, that was a few years ago and I don’t know what the numbers are today, but I do know it illustrates an incredible story. I realize it’s apples and oranges to a degree, but imagine creating a business model, not built on low price, that resulted in average branch revenue twice the largest landscaping company in the world. That would be an incredible accomplishment. So how did Chick-fil-A do it?

The Chick-fil-A story

Surprisingly, they were not known for great customer service when Dan Cathy took over Chick-fil-A from his father, who founded the restaurant in Atlanta with Dan’s uncle. As Dan told it, the client experience was so bad, 25% of customers would not come back to eat at their restaurants. They meant well but didn’t have the training and systems in place to scale a great guest experience.

Around the same time, Dan found a mentor in a German gentleman named Horst Schulze, who happened to be the founder of the Ritz Carlton. Horst shared his views with Dan, and Dan started implementing them into Chick-fil-A. Slowly, the training and systems started to pay off, the culture shifted and Chick-fil-A was making big improvements on the customer service front.

After some years passed, Chick-fil-A broke through. A leading trade magazine released their customer satisfaction ratings and Chick-fil-A was ranked number 1. An excited Dan Cathy met with his mentor, magazine in hand, and tossed it on the desk in front of Horst. Dan said to him, “We did it! Within our market segment, we’re the number 1 restaurant in the country for customer service!” Horst glanced down at the magazine, leaned forward and slid it back to Dan, saying, “You have absolutely nothing to be proud of. You’re just the best of a bad lot.” Gulp…

Make your business an experience

I don’t know about you, but when I heard that story, it was as if Horst was speaking to me. I’m sure many of you are like me and believe you run a business that serves your customers well. Certainly better than the low-baller across town, right? But is that the currency? Is that what we’re aspiring for?

I think our industry, more than almost any other, has the ability to create impactful experiences, not only for our customers, but our team members as well. We have the luxury of beautifying the world, not only in the work we do, but the manner by which we do it.

What would it take for your business to evolve into an “experience” business rather than a landscape business? How can you have clients and employees so excited to connect with you, they enthusiastically get in one of two lines that wrap around your building, regardless of what time of day it is?

Some ideas to consider

• Understand that internal customer service begets external customer service. If you fail to treat your employees with respect and don’t give them a fine reputation to live up to, they’ll never have the self-confidence and pride needed to serve others for the joy of it.
• Make service personal. Listen to your employees and customers beyond the words. Look past the what and the how, and internalize their why. If you’re fighting for their why, it becomes a very strong bond.

• Never fail to do what you say you’re going to do. This sounds remedial, but I am consistently surprised by how often this is overlooked. Trust is the foundation of all worthwhile relationships.
• Love what you do and teach your team to love what they do. Work performed with passion makes properties take on a different shine.
• Make sure the people you put in leadership positions fully understand and embrace your culture before you let go of the reigns. If you have a leader who doesn’t believe in your values and doesn’t speak your language, delivering a consistent brand experience internally and externally will be like herding cats.
• Challenge your team to buy into a more professional appearance. When clients look out their window and see clean-cut professionals working diligently on their property, their perception of quality and value automatically increases.
• Hire an outside company to perform independent customer satisfaction surveys and build your off-season plans around addressing your weakest areas.
• Have the courage to believe greatness is just as well suited to rest on your skin as anyone else’s. It just comes down to your imagination to paint the picture of your ideals, and willpower to see them through.

If you simply want to build a reputable business that enjoys a degree of customer loyalty and sustainable profits, be the best of a bad lot. There’s no shame in it, and a lot of people make a good living doing it. However, if you want to have an impenetrable moat around your company, two lanes of cars wrapped around your building, and change what is expected from our industry…build a brand that creates memorable experiences.

Dan and his team at Chick-fil-A took Horst’s feedback to heart and built a brand that is synonymous with a great customer service. I believe each of us has the same opportunity, only more so. The nature of our industry offers an opportunity for us to beautify the lives of our clients, employees and community. That’s an incredibly powerful way to connect and build lasting relationships.

The Chick-fil-A story is proof that the magic is in doing ordinary things, like caring for others, extraordinarily well. Think beyond the what and the how, feel the why and build that moat. Who knows? During that process, you may just become the company that breaks the mold and reshapes our industry.

John Munie is founder & CEO of Focal Pointe based in St. Louis, Missouri. You can reach him at jmunie@yourfocalpointe.com.