[Pelican]

I've sifted through a number of threads through a search and learned that some of us do and some of us don't offer guarantee's on lawn installations. What I want to do here is find out what the different policies we have in place. This was inspired by an "enlightening" conversation with a customer regarding the progress of his lawn.

I've got a Harley rake for my skid steer and I spend an extensive amount of time grading the yards and sifting out rocks. When I'm done they are nice and smooth and will be easy to mow. I have a mowing operation in place so we know what can cause problems for mowers.

After the grading, I seed with a creeping red fescue/chewings blend that I've found works well in our area. Then fertilize with starter and check ph, adjusting if necessary. All this is topped off with hay mulch. I contracted out hydroseeding on a past job with very poor results so I've stuck to the traditional method since.

My policy is once the job is complete, it is in the hands of the customer. The only thing I see that could prevent the job's success is the lack of water. On the hydroseeded job I mentioned, there was very little germination of the seed and I reseeded at my expense since it appeared there was either bad seed or very little seed in the hydroseed blend. In cases where it would be obvious there was a problem with the seed, I'd redo the seeding at my expense, but otherwise I offer no guarantee. I explain to the customer when we finish that their new lawn will only give back what they put in to it, that if they neglect it, it will fail.

The other problem I've encountered is washouts. There have been cases where we've had downpours immediately following my finishing a job and it would receive rutting. While I feel bad for this happening, it's not due to anything I've done wrong and I don't normally cover it.

My area is extremely competitive for pricing work, so there's no room to pad for the possibility of having to rework a job. I'm wondering how others here handle this problem?

[Stonehenge]

It's interesting you bring this up - I had a conversation with a competitor a couple weeks ago about lawn seedings, and was surprised to hear how differently we price our work.

To the question of our policy on lawn seedings, there's what's on paper, and what we do in practice. On paper I spell out explicitly:

LAWN INSTALLATION
Stonehenge installs lawns according to common industry practices, using quality grass seed, applied at a rate of at least that of the manufacturer’s recommendation. It is the responsibility of the Customer to ensure that rough grades have been established according to municipal drainage plans and within 2” of finished grade. Once seeded, Stonehenge has no control over weather, watering or other cultural practices of Customer. Therefore Stonehenge cannot guarantee the germination rate of seed, or general success of the seeding. Repairs done on a seeding project are done at the expense of Customer. Stonehenge also cannot accept responsibility for settling due to new construction, utility lines or any other excavations not performed by or supervised by Stonehenge.

But we will come out and touch up a seeding that may not have taken - but there are limits. I want clients to be happy, but won't go out of business to make that happen.

A few times I've heard "We hired you to put in our lawn", to which I usually reply "No, you hired me to seed your yard - whether it turns into a lawn is up to you."

We don't guarantee seedings. Simple as that.

Back to the point of pricing - in my conversation with a local competitor, we were finishing up the grade on a new lawn and this guy was chatting with me about how competitive the pricing is for new lawns. He charges around $1,500 for most 1/3 acre lots around us, and was complaining that he was getting undercut by guys doing lawns for between $700 and $1,000.

When I told him we won't touch a lawn seeding of that size for less than $2,500, he wasn't sure what to say, other than that he needed to raise his prices. It was pretty interesting hearing his perspective on pricing. But I also think there are some real reasons that he'll probably never be able to charge that much (and get it) for a seeding - and they have nothing to do with the quality of the end product.

[GLAN]

"It was pretty interesting hearing his perspective on pricing. But I also think there are some real reasons that he'll probably never be able to charge that much (and get it) for a seeding - and they have nothing to do with the quality of the end product."


Jeff

Can you elaborate a bit more...please?

[Stonehenge]

I had the feeling I'd just met a lifer barfly on a Sunday morning after a hard weekend. Attitude was pretty bad - everybody he knew was a dumb***. He was about to go meet with a client and looked like the cat had just dragged him in - as basis for comparison, khakis and oxfords (or polos when it's warm) is how I meet clients.

And after knowing him about 2 minutes I found out about all kinds of nasty medical history of his. Great if we're good friends, but not something you lead with.

He looked, talked and smelled like a low-budget lawn seeding guy, and the law of birds of a feather will probably keep him charging little and making less.

[start2finish]

our policy is like jeff's, we do everything as we should and the end result is between the customer and mother nature. If we were to gurantee establishment then people couldn't afford us. not to mention we seed 12 months out of the year on new construction.

[GLAN]

Yeah.....I can relate......I know the type.

As far as seeding?....Totaly out of my hands, no guarantee. Same goes for sod.......unless a strip or so dies off in a few days, that I'll replace N/C.

I'll do some small, light spot seeding in one of our newly seeded lawns........but if failure due to lack or over watering, damage due to heavy rain, people, pets, etc.......will be billed for accordingly.

[jwholden]

The market for lawn work is cut throat around here as well. I don't bother going on lawn install calls unless it is for an existing customer or I am getting a really good vibe. People don't understand why it costs more to bring in three to four inches of QUALITY screened topsoil and make the grade 'flow'.

I don't wear khacki's (well, ok, khacki dickies) and oxfords, and don't show up on their steps with an attitude. I try to find common ground with my clients and demonstrate what makes my company's services unique.

[Pelican]

So far the policies here are very similar to mine. If I see that something has obviously gone wrong as in the case of the hydroseeding I mentioned, I'll cover it. Otherwise, not.

I wonder where our customers are getting the idea their new lawns should be guaranteed?

[start2finish]

pelican,

I have made exceptions as everyone else has, but I reserve judgement for myself. If I feel that we need to correct something or am in a great mood that day for whatever reason I may fix it. It also depends on the customer's tone in their call and the relationship during the job. We don't usually get callbacks or issues with work done directly for the customer. Now we do return for other projects for them. Most of our static comes from the buyer of the house calling and wanting the yard fixed. I even had someone call and complain about their lawn telling me they watered and took care of it that we planted cheap seed. Guess what the job was on the same road I live on and I drove be and looked at it everyday. They never watered and mowed it a 1.5 inches (scalped) You can guess the verdict on that one. I told them where I lived <1/2 mile. and they politely accepted responsibility and paid for an areation.

[Stonehenge]

Pelican - What happened during your enlightening conversation?

[Pelican]

"Enlightening" in that I learned a bit about my client.

We've been fighting rain here for the past month, 3 and 4 days of steady rain a week for 4 weeks now. I've been working on this clients lawn for a couple weeks now between rainstorms and when it's been dry enough to work the soil. I had finally finished up the grading, then seeded and fertilized. Not 1/2 hour later a thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere and we got dumped on with a downpour.

The following day I went back to check the damage and my client stormed toward me and started ranting about the length of time the job had taken, complained I had covered his sprinkler heads (1/2 inch of soil, they functioned perfectly) and that his seed had washed away. There was some minor rutting and perhaps a small amount of seed had been lost, but I could see the majority of the seed had been pounded in to the soil.

My client started to tell me how upset he was, and that I should have known of the approaching storm. I reminded him of how earlier in the day he had been complaining how long the job was taking and wanted the job finished ASAP. I had been working all day and had not heard any warning of the storm, I'm not sure it would have made much difference. Our weather forecasting is hit and miss here.

I was getting a pretty good idea of where the conversation was heading so I asked him directly where he was going with this. He got indignant and said if you can't see, I'm not going to tell you. Then he stormed off after a few more minutes worth of exchanges.

I had some tidying up to do at his property which took me about an hour after which I rang his bell (doorbell, lol) and explained in detail what had happened here and what my usual policies are. He had calmed down somewhat and listened to what I had to say and I explained how the weather had delayed his job tremendously and had also damaged it as well. I did agree to return and overseed areas which had the seed washed away for no labor charge, but I wouldn't eat the seed cost. The job is about 10 minutes away and is in a development where I have 5 maintenance accounts. It will take about an hour to do the overseeding if needed and I can eat that.

After any exchange where my customer is unhappy I always second guess myself in whether I've done the right thing. That's what prompted this thread, I wanted to see what some of the rest of us have in place. My customer was satisfied with my explanation and offered payment for that portion of the job. I have other ongoing work at this location, so I wanted to see just where we were at before I did any further work. It all worked out so we are both happy in the end.

[cutntrim]

I only guarantee the quality/health of the seed/sod at the time of installation. After that, it's up to them. It's all about water.

Pelican: It sounds like you handled that conversation (confrontation) pretty well. It's taken me many years to learn not to take every criticism personally. Likely, the guy was having a bad day to begin with and you made an easy target. Had he said nothing, would you have re-seeded the washout areas at your own expense (labor) anyhow? Guess he never gave you a chance to do that before launching into his tirade.

Maybe you should start allowing for the potential of a percentage of the seed to be washed-out on future installs. Then you'd have built-into the pricing to cover re-seeding partial areas without having to submit a second invoice to the customer in that situation. Sorta the same as allowing for replacements on plant install jobs.

[site]

When I meet with customers to discuss their project I tell them- "I am going to sell you SEEDS, not grass. If you want grass I can sell you grass. Its called SOD. Sod costs extra.
It has cut down on call backs, but not completely.

[Stonehenge]

Originally posted by site
I am going to sell you SEEDS, not grass. If you want grass I can sell you grass. Its called SOD. Sod costs extra.

That's a work of art - to the point, as simple as could possibly be, establishes expectations. Perfect.

[Lawn Lad]

Based on something that I read on this site sometime back we've now got two ways of installing lawns. There is the basic lawn instalaltion (I like "sell seed, not grass). We offer no warranty with this type of installation. We also sell a lawn development program which then includes five fert apps, aerating one year later and a warranty on the turf/seeding job. It is priced accordingly and then sets up for continuing work on the customer's property. We're new to selling this approach so no real hard data, just anectodal information. At this point I'm still polishing the sales pitch for the two options.

Due to our problems with straw quality we got a Turfmaker hydroseeder. We're learning as we go and having to work with different mixes to see how things go. My understanding wtih hydroseeding is that since the germination process is kick started in the tank it is critical to begin watering immediately and to keep moisture going. With a dry installation you can wait a day or two to start watering, it won't matter as much.

I've learned that barley and wheat straw are okay, but stay away from oat straw - comes from the seed distributor/farmer I talked with two weeks ago.

Anyhow, we're reworking our approach due to the call back and expectations. So we're adjusting the expectations.