The Top 6 Grass Care Service Problems and Their Solutions

2. Speed of the Service Call

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!

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...

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.

6. Results!

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.