The Top 6 Grass Care Service Problems and Their Solutions


Things don't always go to plan when taking on a lawn care service. This article looks into the six most common issues that we have come across and experienced as a lawn care service and how we go about overcoming them.

1. Communication 


We have heard on many occasions of customers of ours when first looking for a grass care service of trying to make contact with lawn care services  but gaining no response – even after days and weeks.

It’s not just about the speed of communication but the quality of it. This both from the office and in-person with a technician. I believe that it’s easy as a lawn care service to forget that everyone else doesn’t know what it is that we do and how we operate.

We understand that a lawn care service is a new service for many, and with that we take time to help you understand what we are all about. We have a dedicated web portal for new customers who gain this link as soon as we book their first visit. When in person, new customers get a physical ‘Welcome Pack’ with again as much information on our service and us that could be desired, including our terms and conditions in paper form, along of course with an instant quotation with further detail on our recommended plan of action.

We sometimes get told that we communicate too much!

It doesn’t stop with the first visit as with all lawn cars service visits, we email a tailored condition report with every treatment. Even if you are not at home during the day, we’re providing feedback on how your lawn is getting on and our recommendations for the coming days and weeks.

A Kingsbury Lawn Care Welcome Pack for new lawn care service customers

We are available 5 days per week via email for those short notes, and also available over the phone. Should we miss your call for any reason or it is out of our working hours there is no voicemail – you are directed straight to our out of hours team who take a message for us so we can call you back as soon as possible.

Communication is a two-way street, but I believe we are in a great place and are always open to and encourage feedback from our customers.

2. Speed of the Service Call

A lawn treatment being applied


There is much more to lawn care than the time spent actively treating the lawn!  This lawn near Solihull is looking fantastic following a liquid treatment 

This is one that we have heard about many grass care services at some point in time, and I’m sure it will have been said about Kingsbury Lawn Care somewhere, at some point in time!

My view is that some lawn care services give their technicians a very high workload per day. They are not quite like modern curriers who are already back in the van after ringing the doorbell(!) – but a disgruntled customer for several reasons may feel that way! Some technicians will be expected to complete 30-40 calls per day, treating over 4,000m2 (an acre) of lawn area. Many will be targeted to hit certain revenue goals. Some lawn care services over-book days on the assumption that a customer or two from the list will drop out and this may or may not happen come the time.

When it comes to the actual application regardless of the given grass care service, for small lawns this only takes a matter of minutes, sometimes only seconds. This is with us not including the time at the yard loading up, travel time, filling and mixing / set-up time, communication with the customer, checking the garden gate is re-secured, and completing the required e-paperwork.

We ourselves can be certain that our applications are exactly the speed we want them to be. As a Lawn Assured Accredited service, all of our technician’s complete re-calibration assessments at regular intervals to check their walking pace, spray width and the flow rate of the given sprayer with given nozzle type to be sure that the perfect quantity of lawn treatment is applied and as uniformly as possible. A lot more maths goes into a lawn care service than you may realise!

Typical lawn treatment applications don’t take all that long for those smaller lawns, although it may take a homeowner or a maintenance gardener much longer. For those smallest lawns, a higher proportion of our time may be speaking with our customer, and we don’t want to be rushing them. We don’t have daily targets, and have manageable workloads for our technicians with realistic timings. This is all so we can make the biggest possible impact each day while sharing as much lawn love as we can along the way!

3. Correct Grass Care Programme for the Correct Lawn

A risk with any transaction is that you end up over-buying. Paying for the top-end service or product that you don’t actually want or need. A lawn care service could sell for the sake of selling… rather than because their top programme is the best thing for your lawn. We all want to push ourselves and our businesses to be the best that they can be. I love to network with small business owners and some of those feel how little we charge for a visit of what we do is crazy! However, the customer must be gaining a programme of lawn care visits that is best for:

1) The customer
2) The lawn

In that order.

Overselling is not fair on the customer, and isn’t how we build strong, lasting relationships with our customer base. If a lawn doesn’t need scarifying on an annual basis then we don’t recommend it. It is as simple as that.

We are aware that there will always be a cheaper lawn care alternative out there – if that be another service, making do via a couple of granular fertiliser applications with your gardener, having a go yourself, or taking no action at all. With that, a core value of ours is ‘make an impact’. In this context, this means making your budget go as far as it can when it comes to the results you see on your lawn. We exist to add value to your garden.

4. Renovation / Scarification Waste


Scarification calls from a professional service can produce a great deal of scarification waste. Of course, every lawn is different, and every service is different, but this is a heavier-going job than most realise.

All grass care services will have different attitudes when it comes to renovation waste. The important thing here is that if being quoted for scarification, that it is clear in your quotation as to if it’s removal from site and legal disposal is included within the price or not. It should not come as a hidden surprise later.

My take is this:

We are lawn care specialists. We haven't built time into our days to travel and queue at a suitable waste disposal site at the end of our days. After a hard day of fantastic lawn care work, our technicians need to get themselves home. If we were to be taking away scarification waste, then the time and fuel required would need to be added to the job.

There are more cost effective ways of dealing with renovation waste...

A full skip following a professional scarification job from a lawn service

As stated, we’re all about making your budget go as far as it can. With that combined with the above, it would be madness for us to attempt to remove waste when:

1) Nearly all homes have a green waste bin for grass cuttings

If the renovation waste isn’t going to fit into the bin at once as it often doesn’t, we have a scheme where we lend dumpy bags without charge that we collect with the next lawn care visit. The waste from these bags can be fed into the green bin or taken to the tip – thereby keeping the cost of your lawn renovation ‘on the lawn’.

2) Larger properties often have a compost bin / recycling area

It would be mad not to use it.

3) As a last resort, paying for a skip hire would still be much cheaper than what we would have to charge to take the waste ourselves

We’re the lawn care specialists, they are the waste removal specialists. We put this information out that we do not take renovation waste away ourselves and that there are better, most cost-effective alternatives on every quotation that we send, and further reminders for upcoming scarification calls.

5. Technician Knowledge and Person-ability 

There is going to be an element of risk with someone coming to your house. Are you going to ‘click’; are they going to have your best interests at heart, and treat your garden as if it were your own. We understand that.

Then, there is the case of who is likely to be visiting on a regular basis? Will it be the same technician? Does the given lawn care service have a high staff turnover and look after their team? How new are they to the role and if they are, how detailed has their training and onboarding been? Can they achieve what it is that we are looking for?

We hear mixed from other grass care services but again, these could just be a small percentage of disgruntled customers. But what we can control is that we can recruit, hire and train by our own core values – employing those that are the best fit for our service and in turn, our customers.

We seek to get the same technician to you every time, or have your lawn shared between two of our team at most when considering the holiday time and a little area overlap.

The best place to look for the feedback on our team is our outstanding Google reviews, further feedback on TrustPilot, and for some information on the team that makes Kingsbury Lawn Care what it is today. Visit our dedicated KLC Team Page to learn more.

A lawn ready for treatment in the summer

6. Results!

A lovely deep green striped front lawn following lawn treatment


This is what it is all about, isn't it?

There are a lot of bits and pieces to a lawn care service as you can see, and things that can be considered. However ultimately, you’re seeking a lawn care service provider who can gain results on a problem. This is what it melts down to in its simplest form!

It is worth noting that improvements to a lawn often don’t come about overnight. Dependent on the current condition of the lawn, a single treatment will often see an uplift, but it could be a turnaround job across weeks and months before the lawn starts to reach it’s potential.

With this in mind, I would suggest choosing wisely from the outset, and then give that lawn care service some space and trust to follow through on their recommendations.

We are a company that both ‘sweats the small stuff’ and focuses on impact – we are results driven. We relish in the lawn renovation turnarounds, the lost causes, and the fantastic reviews and recommendations that we gain. Helping others and gaining positive feedback is the real reward for our hard work.


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1) Complete your details

2) Click and drop the pin on your house

3) Use the mapping tool to trace your lawns for approximate measurement and hit submit


There is no ongoing contract – see our online reviews and results for yourself! If you’re not one for technology or there’s a few unanswered questions, then we’re available over the phone during usual office hours on 01827 826123.