Even when treated to discounts and professional service, the most satisfied lawn care customers will still call their provider back to the lawn if something isn’t quite right. Depending on the situation, LCOs may or may not charge for these time-consuming service calls.
“With our gold and silver packages, if the client has a problem on their lawn or if they’re not happy with their service between 10 and 14 days following the treatment, we’ll go back at no additional charge and try to correct the problem” says Daryl Zellmer, president, Lawn Systems, West Bend, Wis. “If someone calls up and is not a customer but wants someone to look at their lawn, we charge a diagnostic fee. In some cases, depending on the nature of the resulting account, we may credit that fee back to the customer during the scope of a large-scale project or renovation where they’re spending a lot of money on the services.”
Brad Culver, president, NitroGreen/Helena, Helena, Mont., has had similar experiences with customer call backs, but discovered that most of the service requests were coming from customers who were requesting the fewest applications throughout the year.
“We put a lot of emphasis on having program customers and not just application customers,” Culver says. “We’ll bend over backwards to anyone who is on our program to make sure they have a rewarding experience with us. We try to educate our customers right up front that you get what you pay for and we refer to those least application customers as ‘one-app wonders.’ They get one application and wonder why their lawn isn’t looking good.”
To educate clients and increase the company’s profitability, Culver refers to these call-backs as “opportunity calls.” “Most people who buy lawn care really aren’t educated about what they should be looking at or how they should be caring for their lawn,” he adds. “Any time you have a chance to get on the lawn with the customer, you have the perfect opportunity to educate them about the services you offer, upsell them, and show them how to get better results from what you do and what they need to be doing.”
The author is Assistant Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@lawnandlandscape.com.