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Fast growth demands efficiency at Go Green Lawn & Tree Care, where the goal is to service new clients within 48 hours of a sale. Now entering its fourth season, Go Green has nine trucks servicing 3,870 accounts in Michigan’s Oakland and Livingston counties. The company provides a core service of lawn fertilizing, but also tree and shrub care, overseeding and aeration.
Owner Gary Kott has been routing fleets since the late 80s and says that routing is actually fun with the software he uses now.
“It’s just so much faster. It’s easier and it’s so much more,” he says. “You don’t have to know much about mapping to be able to use it.”
Whereas Kott estimates he was spending 30 to 45 minutes to route five trucks before, he can now route and print maps for nine trucks in about 10 minutes, 15 minutes tops. Plus, the process is streamlined thanks to the new technology.
Kott can separate out different services and routes, and color code them. He can see a customer’s last service date and include new sales along with customers who need service as soon as possible, and separate them out at the click of a button.
“If I want to view ASAPs, I can do that and then be able to manually or automatically add them into the day’s routing,” he says, noting the same is true of new sales, which he can then route around.
“Say a customer calls,” Kott says. “You would have to get out of the mapping program and then go into a customer’s account. If I were in the middle of a project, then I’ve got to close that down and come back to it. At this point, I can go into a customer’s screen and you don’t have to drop what you’re doing.”
Kott can click on a stop on his route, go into the account and make changes right there, streamlining the process.
Now Kott has more time to spend on things like sales, answering the phone and other managerial tasks. Plus, for him, it’s fun now. “I really enjoy it,” he says.
With maps that are constantly being updated, it’s easier for Kott to find newly built homes. “So let’s say your house in on this new cul-de-sac. I can physically move and use the satellite view to drop it where it needs to be,” he says.
And technicians can customize their routes for what works best for them. If a worker wants to stop on the left or right side of a driveway, all they have to do is tell Kott and he can route their GPS to put them right where they want to be.