Choosing a Lawn Service

So you decided against attempting to rule (or ruin!) your lawn yourself this year and have been hoping that the magic lawn service will appear right when you need them, right? Well, there are some things you need to know before you break out that checkbook and sign up for a year of pleasure or pain. A few rules of thumb to help you along the way and even if you’ve already signed up with a service, some ways to forecast what your future may hold this year.

The number one thing you need to know is that there are marketing companies and then there are lawn companies. How do you distinguish them apart? If they are telemarketing fools or sending fresh faced sales staffers around door to door, a red flag should immediately be raised in your mind. Glossy estimates and brochures only mean they have graphic artists working for them, not experienced, dedicated technicians. If I were to choose a service, I would want to talk to the technician who would be servicing my lawn, more so than anyone else. A salesperson will not be the one treating your lawn, it makes absolutely no difference what he or she has to say. If the answer is, “We don’t know who that would be yet . We are still building our routes.” or, worse, “We haven’t hired all of our technicians for the season.”(but they have all their sales staff!) Run away as fast as you can. I want someone with at least a season of experience, not someone who will be getting unsupervised learning on my lawn.

If they do send out someone claiming experience and you are doubtful about that claim, it is an easy task to check online for his pesticide applicators license and see when and if he obtained it. Why is it important to have experienced techs, don’t they train them all the same each year regardless? An inexperienced staff is a good indicator of the churn with operations staff in a marketing driven company. Operations are secondary to a marketing company (read: training and retention of skilled employees). Sales first, then more sell sell sell. It’s easy to recognize this type of firm, if you know their markers. You do NOT want a different technician out every time an application is done, who is not seeing changes in your turf and making informed, knowledgeable decisions about how to proceed. If your lawn program is decided by someone who has never even set foot on a Utah lawn, how can that be a good thing? Cookie cutters do not work in an ever changing environment.

I do want to add one warning here regarding door to door sales. Unfortunately, there are people posing as legitimate companies that move state to state, community to community, going door to door selling landscape services. They are polite and look professional, but they have no intention of performing any useful service other than to separate you from your money. It will be a “while we’re in the neighborhood, we can give you a special discount” kind of thing. They may even spray the lawn, often with straight water or just enough chemical to have a smell, but make no mistake, these are fly by nights looking to scam you out of anything they can before they move on. Be smart. If your neighbor called out a service that you’ve seen time and time again in your neighborhood or surrounding areas and have even seen lawns come around that they are servicing, you can feel comfortable making a “walk up deal” with them. If it’s foreign and high pressure, be rid of them and whatever you do, do not let them into your home. By the way, this technique is not specific to landscape, home improvement, security sales, etc. are all favorites of these thieves. Buyer beware.

So now we’ve covered the scams, let’s talk about choosing the right company for your turf goals. Some people measure their lawn success by how often they need to mow it. I’ve heard plenty of old timers tell me with great pride how they need to mow every three days to keep their killer lawn. If this is you, you’d like someone who really promotes growth in their pitch. They’re likely to be nitrogen pushing fools, whose main goal is to make your lawn as long as possible for a short period of time until they can get to their next round. How about an organic program? No pesticides at all. If this is your main concern and you don’t mind spending extra to get there, there are companies that make this their main focus. They won’t be using anything familiar to you if you are used to browsing the aisles of the big box store. They can be quite effective, quite expensive and quite a crapshoot on their end results. I would say if this interests you, seek out others who are having it done and watch the results before you become the guinea pig. A referral that you can witness is the key to choosing a company in this genre.

How about the new guy starting up? This is fine if you like to support small business over established. The rules to consider are the same though, how much experience does this person have and with who? What will happen if he gets overextended, injured or has equipment issues? Who will keep your regular service that is necessary for continued improvement? This isn’t a one and done business. If you can answer those questions satisfactorily to your needs, go ahead. The rest? For me, seeing is believing. If you have seen their work, are comfortable with their price, know they’ve been around and will commit to having the same, experienced technician all season, won’t telemarket you endlessly for upsales, have the proper equipment and are prompt returning calls and answering questions, I’d say you have an easy choice to make. If this doesn’t describe the company you have or are considering, keep looking. Talk to your neighbors and friends who are getting results. There are plenty of good, skilled companies out there. Be patient, be smart, ask lots of questions and in the end, realize you do have a choice and you should exercise that!