Jane Tocher from the Alitex sales team is rarely in the office as she spends a great deal of time travelling the UK visiting “all things horticultural”. From garden designers and landscapers to estates (both private and public) looking for replacement greenhouses, visits with head gardeners and Alitex greenhouse owners old and potentially new, Jane travels widely and visits many gardens.
Keeping in touch with our greenhouses and their owners is one of Jane Tocher’s favourite parts of her job. “It is really important to keep up with our customers as their feedback is so important. I also enjoy reminiscing about decisions made whilst wandering around the garden, planning the future before the greenhouse has arrived.”
When Jane is in the office she is often invigorated by the customers she has met, the enthusiasm for the plans they have for their garden and greenhouse being infectious. It is also great to learn from horticulturalists, both professional and amateur about their growing under glass top tips – like the rest of the Alitex team we are all interested in creating the perfect growing experience and understanding the needs of plants is a good start.
The continuous horticultural learning at Alitex has been a great success, with Alitex teams visiting large scale strawberry production greenhouses, West Dean walled gardens and various lectures and workshops (National Trust’s Woolbeding held a good one on herbaceous borders). All of this plant knowledge accompanies our sixty years of design and manufacturing of glasshouses. We are firm believers in learning and sharing what we have learned with our customers – especially useful on a home visit, when one of the sales team visits you in your home to talk about your own project.
This isn’t something we charge for and the rest of our sales team (not just Jane!)are equally able to bring their experience to bear on a home visit. You can expect to be visited by Chris Sawyer if you live in Ireland or the Channel Islands, Mike Wallis tends to visit homes in the South West, Amanda Stephens is often to be found in the Home Counties and around Hampshire and John Lawson often makes visits around his home county of Suffolk and much farther afield internationally. Nick Bashford and his sales team of Mark Searle and Mark Godfree work throughout the UK and Europe on the Conservatory side of the business. It goes without saying that any of the team will go anywhere – and do, it’s just how they manage their workloads.
If you have already got our brochure and are still at the planning stage it might be worth one of our team coming along to share their knowledge and experience garnered from all over the UK (and wider world!) to help you settle your decisions. Alternatively you can chat through your more developed plans with the team and they can suggest improvements or make suggestions as to how you could get more from your glasshouse.
Jane will be in Nottinghamshire next week – if you would like her to pop in please give her a call on 01730 826900. If you are elsewhere in the UK please contact us and one of the team can come to your home – there’s nowhere we haven’t been or don’t know (go on…test us!)
