Add Ons Add Up: Keeping the Vision, The Morrell Group

Irrigation hasn’t always been one of the most successful services for The Morrell Group, but getting the right personnel in place and taking a different approach toward servicing customers’ accounts has driven the group in the right direction.

"Finding irrigation people is always the hard part because this work requires a certain mindset," according to Bert Wood, director of the irrigation group. "The best irrigation employees are technically inclined and they are able to see challenges and frustration as an opportunity."

"A lot of our competitors have stopped offering irrigation services, but I don’t know how you can do that in this market," commented Don Smith, president. "The problem with relying on subcontractors is that you can’t be as responsive as you need to be if there is a problem."

"So a real key for us has been our ability to retain our irrigation employees and develop them into true landscape irrigators," continued Wood. "This retention lets us bring in inexperienced technicians when we need to expand and develop them slowly."

Oftentimes, the most challenging part of developing an irrigation employee is teaching him or her about the various irrigation systems the crew works on. A lack of familiarity with systems can also frustrate maintenance crews or groups working on a property and make caring for the property more difficult.

To deal with this issue, The Morrell Group oriented its irrigation service into what it terms a Planned Service Program.

"We saw the need for the service of irrigation systems as opposed to the installation of systems because our properties had systems that we couldn’t keep working," explained George Morrell, chief executive officer. "This frustrated our customers and frustrated us. Developing our Planned Service Program gives our customers the opportunity to have their system serviced by irrigation technicians on a regular basis as opposed to sending someone out to fix a leak whenever there is a problem."

"In irrigation, the learning curve associated with taking on a new property is huge," agreed Don Smith, president. "If we can gather all of the necessary information about an irrigation system, that can also help us ensure that the customer doesn’t want to lose us as a service provider because if you can’t manage the irrigation system on a property then you’re in real trouble."

"This program is designed to catch problems before anyone sees the results of the problem, which is a benefit to the landscape and to the integrity of the system because the longer problems go neglected the more long-term flow problems we could encounter in the system," added Wood.

A key part of the program is the system map that the irrigation group devises for each property that purchases the service.

"We want to perform an irrigation audit on every new property that we pick up, but in addition to measuring the actual amount of water put out by a system and measuring that against the landscape’s needs, we want to gather as much information about the system as possible," explained Wood. "So we’ll map out the entire property and try to locate as many zone valves and shut-off valves as possible up front to give our maintenance staff a valuable management tool.

"If they don’t know the zone number of where the clock or water source is for a part of the system, the maintenance personnel are going to have a hard time figuring out what is causing a particular problem," Wood added. "These maps also help the irrigation technicians look for areas where there is potential for selling an upgrade on a system."

Wood said that thus far about 60 percent of the system maps have generated revenue in the form of system repairs or upgrades, while the other 40 percent have still benefited the maintenance crews.

While getting customers to buy off on the idea of proactive irrigation service can be a bit of a challenge at times, sufficient results are being gathered from the Planned Service Program to illustrate its value.

"In addition to helping our maintenance crews service these properties, we’re seeing that the properties that sign on for the Planned Service Program generally experience fewer irrigation problems," remarked Wood.

Developing a history of water use costs for a property also helps the irrigation or maintenance group help clients manage and budget for their irrigation costs.

"We’re getting to the point now where we want to be able to show the client how much money we can save them with any upgrade we propose for an irrigation system," Wood added. "A rain sensor could pay for itself in two weeks, and that’s what customers look at because they’re all about dollars and cents and they have to justify their costs to someone else."

Wood would like to see the irrigation group continue to grow, and managing customer’s water features or pump systems are both opportunities for additional service offerings. But Wood will be ready for any growth that occurs to his current six-crew group and he will keep it under control, as evident by his organizational chart evolution that shows the positions the company should expect to add and fill during the next five years.

"We’ll have to add more levels of management, and we’ll probably want to separate the planned service from any type of upgrades or renovations we provide in order to differentiate between the two in our customers’ minds," Wood forecasted.

"But the key to irrigation management is planning, and George and Don have helped me with setting goals," he added. "If all we did was react to problems then we would be firefighters on a daily basis. Our long-term goals for this service may be ambitious, but at least they give us something to focus on."

"The key for our managers to remember is that growth shouldn’t be something you pursue just to get better," commented Smith. "Managers have to ask themselves why they want their group to grow and what good will come from it being bigger?"

TECH SERVICES/SEASONAL COLOR. The Morrell Group’s chemical lawn care services, which it refers to as tech services, and seasonal color service are two additional add-on services the company offers.

Gary Tomlinson serves as the director for both groups and splits his time between the services despite the fact that their seasons can overlap each other at times.

"Seasonal color takes a lot of time during the spring installation season, and then we have the big pushes for round one and round two for tech services," Tomlinson noted. "Both programs have maintenance in the summer, and then we have fall fertilization, aeration and overseeding in the fall while we’re handling seasonal color plantings."

Tomlinson spends quite a bit of time serving as a go-between for the maintenance division and his add-on groups, managing scheduling issues and making sure work order requests from the maintenance division are taken care of so The Morrell Group’s customers receive a lineup of services seamlessly.

"We need to have a good relationship with the maintenance group because we support their work," he explained. "As an organization gets larger, there is a tendency for it to also become more fragmented. Our structure with me handling both groups can rein things back in and stop that fragmentation."

Tomlinson also use the regional maintenance managers as his eyes on a property.

"Those guys are on properties every week, whereas I may see an account every two months or so, and that’s usually only when we run into a significant disease problem," he said.

Within these two groups, Tomlinson has two operations managers for tech services – one for trees and shrubs, and one for turf – and two operations managers for seasonal color.

"Communication between these four operation managers is crucial to make sure we’re hitting all of the properties and that we’re spreading out our scheduled visits in an organized fashion," Tomlinson added.

The company will cross-train tech services technicians to occasionally make applications on perennial and annual beds because these individuals are familiar with the equipment, products and procedures for making these application in addition to being more volume oriented in terms of production than seasonal color technicians are.

While tech services technicians tend to spend most of their time dealing with turf or trees and shrubs, they are also cross-trained to provide flexibility during busy times of year. However, Tomlinson said managers have to be cognizant of the different approaches to the work employed by turf technicians vs. tree and shrub technicians.

"Tree and shrub technicians tend to spend more time in the field identifying problems and looking for the problems or causes," he cautioned. "‘Is this stress from over watering or automobile exhaust or some man-made problem?’ So there can be a challenge getting them into the production mode that is sometimes necessary for turf."

When it comes to building a successful seasonal color program, the common Morrell theme of identifying customer needs is at the top of Scott Carter’s list of keys. The senior designer for the seaonal color group said the company also prides itself on finding new plant varieties to introduce to the market to give key clients an even more unique landscape.

"Most of our clients today are looking for the cutting edge new look," Carter commented. "A good seasonal color bed makes them feel like they are getting more attention for their cost so they are willing to spend the money. And that’s particularly true for the property management companies who are trying to draw attention to their buildings and rent space."

In between installing new beds during Atlanta’s two, six-week installation periods each year, the seasonal color employees, which are entirely separate from the maintenance employees, spend their time maintaining all of the ornamental beds on the company’s maintenance accounts.

"Our responsibilities include pruning, pulling weeds, checking for insects or fungus, removing dead blooms, reshaping beds and dealing with bed repairs," Carter stated.