Over the last decade, lawn care chemical companies have changed from a maximum of five yearly treatments to over ten, Why is this? Chemical applications for ornamental shrubs and turf grasses have grown with unnecessary applications and frequency, customers have been manipulated by big companies with powerful marketing teams, designed to get the most out of every customer. Each new promotion designed to squeeze more and more from their customer base, leaving them feeling less than satisfied when the final tally is added up at the end of the year.
One of the most common ploys to encourage new customers, is to market an inexpensive start up cost, luring the customer into a false sense of savings, (the old 25.00 dollar treatment ploy!) consequently, those same companies with the low sign up cost, end up adding additional services throughout the year, essentially starting low and ending high, they make up the difference by up selling the customer on services they do not need, i.e., grub control, disease control or aeration.
This is a bad practice to get into, yet most larger lawn care companies find themselves in this habit, offering cheap introductory prices to lure in new customers and then up selling treatments not needed. Training their lawn technicians to be salesmen, giving mandatory up sell quotas and putting their customers on call list.
We understand why other companies offer so many treatments; to increase income, keep employees working in the winter months and fortify their customer base, however, we also know how irresponsible this habit is for customers and for our environment. Over applying chemicals when they are not needed, is bad for the environment and against all ethical standards, secondly, most applications have some type of time frame to be applied, an arbitrary date they must be applied by, if you apply outside of those target dates, the chemical is not effective. And thirdly, affecting your pocket book, by up selling you for services not needed, just so they can keep working in the winter and make money.
Case in point:
I personally met a customer of ours years ago for the first time, he was using one of the other larger iconic companies, I will not mention their name! He told me he was not happy with his service and wanted me to come by in my travels and look at his yard, when I arrived I noticed granules on his sidewalk and driveway, now keep in mind this was in the dead of winter, I asked him if he had just applied something, and he stated that, "his current company had just applied a winterize fertilizer." I asked him to give them a call and ask them what the analysis was, he agreed. He called me a few days later and told me that the analysis was 18-18-18"winter coat" is what they called it. I laughed out loud! promptly apologized, and told him, a proven fact of dormant grass is that 94% percent of chemicals applied in the winter are leached away, not to mention the analysis made no sense, the middle number represents seed stimulation and growth, they had also reccomended an aeration, I had to scratch my head.
At Lawn tech we try to adhere to the same philosophy we have since 1985. Offer the customer value and limit up sells. We rarely ever offer any low introductory rate and rarely offer a discount, we try to apply everything you need in one treatment five times a year, just as all companies did a decade ago before yearly maximum treatments became popular. We never and I repeat NEVER, sell your information or put you on up sell call list, or apply chemicals on the weekend when your family is most likely in the yard, or call you at night when your eating dinner! Our treatment cost are affordable for what you get in return and at the end of the year, you save! We always offer free service calls, other companies use this as a unique opportunity to up sell you! We try to stick to a schedule of timed treatments in order to get the most out of the chemical, if the technician sees you have a problem with your lawn, needing extra services, we will call you and notify you of the need to spend more money to fix the problem, sometimes the up sell is warranted. So now you know the real story behind adding, up selling and number of treatments per year. Their is no need to over apply chemicals to you and your families environment, so call Lawn Tech today and let us show you why we are the responsible company offering you value for your money. 972-346-2696
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