Ohio Referral

I have a referral for anyone in the Youngstown, Ohio area. Any takers? Potentially multiple sites if all goes well.

Unfortunately, no grave tenders offered to take this job.    At any rate, the customer found a small landscaping company to do the work.

I am happy for the customer to have found someone to do this job for her, but disappointed that NO grave tenders in Ohio stepped up to the plate on this one.

To be fair, I could not find a grave tender in the Youngstown area. I did find some closer than myself. They were an hour away, but flat out refused to take any job outside of their one city. In an attempt to email them about the job, I received a reply. Ready for this?......"CLEVELAND ONLY". That was it. No "hello"....no "Good luck"....nothing other than the two words, "CLEVELAND ONLY".

This is bad business, folks. You need to at least be open to conversation with clients, even if they are not in your area. The tender in question did not know that I was contacting them on behalf of a client. For all they knew, I could have been the client, herself! Because of this interaction, I will not be contacting this grave tender with any more referrals, whether they are in Cleveland or not. 

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I agree with you completely.  Part of being in business is creating customer service and good will whatever the situation.  At the least these people might have offered to brainstorm other possibilities given they would not take the job.  An indifferent or negative reaction creates a poor reference for all of us.