Symbiot Merges with Snow Management Group

The Symbiot Business Group and the Snow Management Group announced their agreement to join forces, merging their organizations and property service lines.

Under the terms of the agreement, Snow Management Group, a division of Allin Cos. that maintains more than 5,000 sites in 42 states, will move forward under the Symbiot name and continue snow and service contract management operations from its facilities in Erie, Pa. Both companies expect the integration to take about one month – just in time for the busy snow season in the Northern United States.

“We consider the Snow Management Group a leader in snow and ice removal services,” explained Drew St. John, Symbiot’s vice president of sales and marketing, at a Nov. 4 press conference. “This gives us a chance to build and rapidly grow our hardscape and snow networks in a faster fashion. Also, Snow Management Group was one of the first investors in Symbiot, which makes this is a truly unique opportunity – a win-win situation for all involved.”

For Symbiot, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Lexington, Ky., will remain the corporate and sales and marketing headquarters, respectively, while Erie, Pa. will serve as the new contract administration and operations center. As part of the merger agreement, John Allin, president of the Snow Management Group, will now head up the operations for the entire Symbiot business.

Allin said this was the best next step for his company. “Our growth had accelerated,” he shared. “We doubled in size over the last four years. Since we were funding our own growth, we were undercapitalized. Our growth would have had to curtail for us to continue to survive. So, this accelerated growth led us to eventually consider partnering with someone. We bring the infrastructure and Symbiot brings the financial strength to help us continue our growth patterns.”

In 2005, Symbiot executives said they plan to continue looking at further potential transactions, though they have no specific acquisition plans. 

In other news, Symbiot also introduced the availability of ClientSurv to its members. ClientSurv is a computerized survey tool developed to produce accurate and actionable data to retain customers using an on-demand Interactive Voice Response system.

Symbiot joined with angel.com to offer this product, and also recently brought on Chief Technical Officer Tyler Whitaker to manage this and other technical areas of the business.

Contractors can use ClientSurv by providing customers with a number to call (on an invoice, for instance) to share their survey results, similar to those already available in the restaurant industry, giving contractors regular feedback from their clients about their business operations. Using this technology decreases survey costs, according to Whitaker. “A regular mail survey with postage and all costs about $3 per survey to conduct, but this system brings that cost down to less than $1 per survey,” he said, adding that traditional telephone surveys cost $10 to $15 per survey while secret shoppers cost $35 to $75 per evaluation. “Not only is ClientSurv more economical, but it’s also more effective. Other forms of surveying poll only 2 percent of customers while ClientSurv reaches 5 to 10 percent.”

To date, Symbiot represents more than 600 partner companies and a combined annual buying strength of more than $1 billion. The Symbiot Landscape Network has more than 350 partners and nearly $1.1 billion in combined sales.

The author is managing editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at nwisniewski@gie.net.