LANDSCAPING
The rains stop and the calls change. Give the big dry season jobs their own column
From late spring to fall, the rain does half the work, and the phone is mostly mowing. Then the rainy season winds down in October. The calls change. People want new sod, new plants, a tree cut back before the next storm season, a sprinkler system checked. Those are bigger jobs. They also take an estimate visit, and that is where they get lost.
A note on what this is. You do not need any software to do what this post says. A whiteboard works. The point is to sort the calls by kind of job, so the big ones do not wait behind the small ones.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Why do the big jobs get buried?
A mowing call is easy. You know the price, you add the house to a route, and you are done. A sod job is not easy. Someone has to go out, measure, look at the ground and write a price. So the easy calls get handled right away, and the hard ones wait for "when we have time."
In the dry season, nobody has time. The customer who asked about sod two weeks ago called someone else last week.
What columns should the board have?
- Mowing and route: new weekly or biweekly customers.
- Planting and sod: needs an estimate visit.
- Tree trimming: needs an estimate visit, and sometimes a check on city rules.
- Irrigation check: a short visit, often booked right away.
- Estimate sent: waiting on the customer to say yes.
- Booked: on the calendar with a date.
You can add or merge columns. What matters is that a sod call and a mowing call do not sit in the same pile.
How do you know if this is your problem?
Check it this week. Open your texts and call log for the last month. Write each call on a line, with the kind of job next to it. Then mark which ones got an estimate, and how many days that took. If the mowing calls were handled in a day and the sod calls waited a week, you have the answer.
What about tree work near power lines?
Do not guess on the phone. A tree near a power line is a job for a trained crew, and sometimes for the power company first. Some cities also have rules about cutting certain trees. Check with the city before you quote. The board can hold the job in a column that says "waiting on a check," so it does not get lost while you find out.
Look at the estimate columns first every morning. The mowing column will still be there.
What about watering?
New sod and new plants need water, and Miami-Dade has watering rules that set which days you can water. Check with the county for the current rules before you promise a schedule. Put the watering note on the job card, in the customer’s language, so they hear it the same way from everyone on your team.
How does the job board work here?
Every call, text or form becomes a card on the board, with where it came from and the language the customer used. The columns are set up for your trade, and you can change them. A card that waits too long in one column raises a waiting alert, so the sod estimate from two weeks ago comes up before it goes cold. If a whiteboard already does this for you, keep the whiteboard.
Related
Sorted last month’s calls?
Bring the list to a 30-minute call. We will set up the columns with you for your kind of work, show you the waiting alerts, and tell you if your whiteboard is already doing the job.
