Lawn mowing standards – Are they slipping?
I often drive past a job and wonder what the lawn guy was thinking.
The edges are poorly done and there are random chunks of grass on the lawn. It looks horrible and is well below what good lawn mowing standards would produce.
I often walk my dog past a business in Te Rapa and I have commented to my wife about the state of the lawns. I figured that it was because the business got a worker (who didn’t know much about lawnmowing) to do the lawns.
I was shocked to walk past the other day and see one of New Zealand’s largest landscaping companies doing the lawn. The guy with the mower kept on changing the height and the guy with the weedeater was going the wrong way with the machine.
I know it can be hard sometimes to keep employees on track. That was one of the reasons we scaled back from five vehicles to two. We felt that our standards were dropping and it was really hard to find people who cared as much about our business as we did.
We even had an agreement that if a worker finished his day’s work early, they could go home. However, if a customer complained then they went back and fixed it up on their own time. That worked ok but it wasn’t the answer for us.
The one thing that we can all control is our own standards on the job.
If you want a good business then you need to set high standards and stick to them. If I am in the vehicle and just about the leave a property and I see something that’s not right. I stop, get out the tools and fix it.
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The worst is when you reverse out of a drive and see a pile of grass from the blower where your vehicle was parked. Still, I stop and fix it.
That is a real pain, but it’s important. If you are not happy with your job then how do you expect the customer to feel?
One of the reasons that our business name actually ranks in the top five Google searches for lawnmowing in Hamilton is that we work hard to keep our standards high.
We always trim the edges, We always use the blower and we always turn up on time. If for any reason we cannot get to a job then we text the customer to let them know.
It’s the same with quotes. We always turn up. If we cannot do the quote we pass it on to another company that we know will turn up or tell them we cannot do the quote so they can continue their search. We answer the phone promptly & call people back immediately.
The only time a call will ever go to the answerphone is when I am on the phone or am talking to a customer. A person standing in front of you is much more important than someone ringing. You can call them back when you are finished with the customer.
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There is a name for the type of business management.
It’s called “Good old-fashioned service.”
The fact that it is becoming less and less common can be the thing that makes your business stand out.
It could be a great leap forward for your business if you decide to embrace it.
It would be a great thing this for the industry if we all had high lawn mowing standards.
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