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I don't know how to do the "quote" thing yet. I'll have to look into that. Dale the answers to your question are many, though probably none of them good, but for starters...
1. We would be the only ones not giving a plant warranty around. I know some folks who give longer warranties with a maintenance contract but no one that does less than 1 year.
2. I don't want to do maintenance on most of the properties we do installs on. We only do high end residential maintenance and are not interested in the hassle of dealing with smaller properties or trying to be competetive on price in that market. We do plenty of small install jobs though and most people still mow there own lawns.
3. I don't know jack about irrigation except the speed dial number for my irrigation guy and don't have the time to learn now. Also it is harder to sell irrigation on a small job as it is, proportionally, a much larger cost. We do always sell irrigation on large jobs. This is also an area where only very high end properties tend to have irrigation because in most years it is not needed (except of course for new plantings).
4. I never really had a problem before.
You're right though. It is pretty stupid to guarantee something you don't control but it is also standard practice. We do factor replacing some plants into our pricing and very rarely have to replace them because of good planting practices so we probably come out well ahead in the end. But I'm suddenly alarmed to the possibility that any client can not water their plants and let them die and I can't prove that it's thier fault if I have to. Maybe I've been lucky to have no problems or maybe I've just been stupidly naive.
I want to keep clients happy and don't mind giving something up occasionally to that end but I really don't like feeling taken advantage of.
HardDays- Thanks for the link. There're a lot of good points in there. We may have to rethink how we do this.
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