Scott Brickman tells Michelle Rivera what this organization is doing to gain customer loyalty as well as satisfaction.

Is there a huge difference between a satisfied customer and a loyal customer? The answer is yes, according to Scott Brickman, president and CEO of commercial landscaping firm The Brickman Group. A satisfied customer may not necessarily mean they’ll turn to your company for future services, but a loyal customer will always stay, he explained.

To that end, The Brickman Group has been focusing on providing top-notch quality service and strong relationships. The company is working to develop a loyal customer base using loyalty measurements through surveys.

Using a framework outlined by Dr. Reichheld of Bain and Company in his book, The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth, the company asks its customers a series of questions. One of the main questions asked is whether or not he or she would recommend The Brickman Group to someone else. A
follow-up question asks how likely they are to recommend, using a scale of one to 10. If a client responds with a number between zero and six, they are called detractors; a client who responds with a number ranging from seven to eight is considered neutral; and a client who responds with any number from nine to 10 is considered a promoter.

Scott Brickman

The difference between the percentage of a company’s promoters and detractors is the net promoter score (NPS), explained Brickman. For example, if 50% of a company’s customers respond with a nine or 10, and 30% respond with zero to six, the company’s NPS would be 20%. The net promoter metric was co-developed by Reichheld and Dr. Laura Brooks of Satmetrix Systems.

A customer’s response to the recommended question serves as a strong indicator of that individual’s economic value to the company. For example, according to Reichheld’s research, customers with higher scores typically buy more, remain customers for longer, and refer others than do those with lower scores. “The net promoter score is expected to signify a company’s growth potential based on the strength of its customer relationships. It can also help management make the right decisions to facilitate such growth,” Brickman said.

Shared learning
Founded in 1939, The Brickman Group has evolved into the largest commercial landscape maintenance firm in the US. Brickman took the role as CEO in 1998 and has since grown the company from $100 million to $500 million in annual revenue—a 500% increase in more than seven years. The company has more than 6,000 employees and 135 branches in 23 states and provides services to office parks, hotels, cemeteries, healthcare facilities, retail centers, and schools.

The Brickman Group continues to grow, primarily internally and through acquisition. On a performance basis with acquisitions, the company will be well over its $500 million revenue mark in 2007—a milestone for the company, according to Brickman.

Creating loyal customers starts with the company’s focus on customer service, communication, and quality initiatives, all of which are at the core of Brickman’s focus. Much of the company’s employee training is done inhouse, using books as training guides in its branches. Employees within the branches take specific chapters or sections of the book and train their teams. “Employees not only share in the learning but also the training responsibilities, a technique we prefer because I believe people learn material better when they know they have to train on it.”

In fact, Brickman brought in Lisa Ford, co-author of Exceptional Customer Service, to conduct training seminars based on the book. When employees are trained right, the company’s renewal rate remains stable, explained the CEO. “We have annual contracts in many cases, and our success is determined by the number of contracts that renew. That’s our ultimate measure,” he said.

Standard operations
Last summer, Brickman received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Real Estate Services Division in the Greater Washington region. The award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic and growing businesses, according to the company’s Web site.

In addition to recognizing Brickman, the award highlights the company’s commitment to philanthropy. One such example is Brickman’s annual Founders Day in which the firm recognizes the philanthropic spirit of its founder, Theodore Brickman, Sr., by sponsoring work projects at charitable organizations in the
communities where they work and live.

Looking ahead, Brickman said the company will continue to focus on quality, service, and relationships while keeping the NPS a key measurement of all operations. To achieve that, the company will center on training, with initiatives led by Brickman and his senior leadership team. “We have 30 regional managers around the country, and we’re pairing them up with the divisional managers for two days of training on standard processes,” Brickman said. “We are giving them the tools to train and lead at the operational level.”

By developing supportive and loyal teams, Brickman wants to create an environment where employees thrive and want to stay. He also plans to aggressively recruit to accommodate the company’s growth, as the company’s business has been doubling every two or three years.

The company’s branch managers average 10 years with the company, regional managers average about 15 years, and senior management average close to 20 years. “We’ll need twice the number of branch and regional managers and employees to join our team. We have great people—all we have to do is continue to properly train them, retain them, and empower them,” Brickman concluded.