GUIDE: Help Customers Turn Ideas Into Projects

Connect their inspiration with your plants, your people, and a practical next step.

At The Garden Center Group’s Fall Event in Cleveland, we introduced three ways to extend the garden center experience: CONNECT, ANSWER, and GUIDE.

The first two articles explored your app as a channel customers choose and the Garden Guide and live chat as ways to answer their questions. This final piece focuses on GUIDE: helping customers turn an idea into a practical project with your garden center.

Customers are already coming in with ideas generated by ChatGPT and other AI tools. They may show you a garden image, a suggested layout, or a list of plants for their front yard.

They have something they’re excited about. But the plants may not be ones you carry. The layout may overlook the conditions in their yard. And they may have no idea where to begin.

That’s where your plants, your people, and your planning expertise come together.

CONNECT THE IDEA TO WHAT YOU SELL

An AI-generated plant list can create an awkward conversation. The customer likes the suggestions, but your staff may have to explain why several plants won’t work—or why you don’t carry them.

At Cultivate, we connected with the team at Neighborbrite. We liked the potential to connect garden planning with plants a retailer sells and bring the customer into a conversation with the garden center’s design staff. It’s one of the options we’re exploring for our retailer partners.

Tools like Neighborbrite can connect planning to your own plant inventory. Customers get a starting point built around plants your garden center sells, with your team confirming availability and suitability as the plan develops.

A simple link in your app or website can direct customers to your garden center’s Neighborbrite interface. They can explore possibilities for their yard, then work with your staff to review and refine the idea.

START WITH ONE SPACE

A patio, front entrance, or shade border gives the conversation a focus. Ask which area the customer wants to improve, what bothers them about it, and how they would like to use it.

They don’t need a plan for the entire property. One manageable project gives them somewhere to begin—and a reason to return when they’re ready for another area.

For your staff, that focus makes the work easier to manage: a particular place, with a particular purpose and budget.

GIVE YOUR PEOPLE A CLEAR ROLE

A picture starts the conversation. Your design staff adds knowledge of local conditions, mature plant sizes, spacing, maintenance, and how the customer wants to use the space.

Together, they can develop a workable plan, including substitutions, a plant and supply list, and a planting schedule. Customers can decide whether to do the work themselves or ask about installation help, where your business or a local referral can provide it.

The relationship grows through those decisions. Customers have someone to return to when they need help or are ready for another project.

THERE IS A BUSINESS CASE

A customer with a workable plan may be ready to buy for the whole bed rather than experiment with a single plant. They understand how the pieces fit together.

Planning help also has value. One option is a consultation fee credited toward a qualifying purchase. That can help cover staff time while rewarding customers who follow through. Whether it fits depends on your staffing, margins, and scope of assistance.

KEEP IT PRACTICAL

Schedule consultations when your staff can give them attention. Set a reasonable session length and stay focused on one space.

Treat AI renderings as possibilities your team needs to review. Confirm plant choices, availability, and growing conditions before the customer purchases.

Make planning optional. Some customers need an answer and a few plants. Others want more help.

INTRODUCE GARDEN COACH THIS WINTER

Winter workshops can introduce customers to the Garden Coach concept. Invite them to bring a photo of one space, demonstrate how Neighborbrite can help them explore ideas using plants you sell, and show how your design staff can help turn those possibilities into a spring project.

Luis at Neighborbrite describes the opportunity this way:

“An inspiration image gets a homeowner excited. A design for their own yard, using plants their garden center sells, gives them a way to act on that excitement. Winter workshops bring the customer, the employee’s expertise and Neighborbrite together so they can head into spring with a shared plan and confidence in what to buy.”

— Luis, Neighborbrite

That gives customers a reason to connect with your team during the slower months—and time to consider their project before the spring rush.

BRINGING THE SERIES TOGETHER

We’re exploring options like Neighborbrite to connect customer inspiration with your plants and people. We’re also considering how our Garden Guide could recognize when planning assistance would be useful and direct customers toward that next step.

CONNECT keeps customers close. ANSWER keeps them confident. GUIDE helps them move forward with a project and a reason to return.

CONNECT. ANSWER. GUIDE. The app provides a place to bring them together.

Interested in introducing Garden Coach through a winter workshop or consultation?