THE AGRONOMIST


The Agronomist:Want Satisfied Lawn Care Clients? Communicate!


IS THERE ANY BETTER EXAMPLE OF THE PHRASE “PARTNERS in success” than in the lawn care segment of our industry? If you stop to contemplate it, we cannot succeed at all without significant effort on the part of our customers. And to tell you the truth, they sometimes make it difficult for us.


I recall being on the road with


By Bob Mann Senior Director of Regulatory and Technical Affairs


a new lawn specialist, helping him out with some training. I loved this aspect of my job because you never knew what topic would pop up to handle. It was the middle of a hot after- noon, and we pulled up to a very nice house in the suburbs with a magnificent lawn. I honestly think we could have harvested it and sold it as sod. You’d think the customer would be apprecia- tive, but you’d be wrong. The customer met us at the door, and she was furious. Once she had finished with her initial verbal flamethrower comments, I (the seasoned professional, don’t you know) stepped forward with the intention of charming her back to just being angry. I failed. Miserably.


I did manage to get her to show me what she was so upset about, however. Stomping to the middle of her otherwise pristine back lawn, she pointed to the cause of her dissatisfaction – a single Oxalis plant. I leaned over and picked it (as any IPM practitioner would do), and that just made her even madder. I can only surmise that some other aspect of her life was out of joint. We quickly wrapped up that stop and got out of there before we became crime statistics. The next stop was a complete


mess. Picture in your mind the Munsters’ house from TV, and you get my drift. The lawn was awful, weeds everywhere, mow- ing non-existent, a complete failure as far as I was concerned. We got to work addressing the issues as best we could and, after completing the paperwork, headed with great trepidation to the front door. The homeowner met us at the door, and all I could think of was that we would get blasted once again, just as we had at the previous stop. I was mistaken.


This homeowner was over-


joyed. He was so happy with how his lawn looked and loved the customer service represen- tatives that he spoke with on the phone, and the lawn specialists that came to visit. The compli- ments flowed like water. Then he stuck $20 bills in each of our shirt pockets. Ah, customers! The reaction of these two people to the con- dition of their lawns was exactly the reverse of what should have been based upon objective agro- nomic observations. But therein lies the great conflict of our line


8 The Edge //May/June 2025


of work – success is completely subjective. Personally, I don’t think growing grass is particularly hard to do, but dealing with people is unpredictable and sometimes very messy. So, what do you do to encour- age that partnership that is so essential to a successful custom- er relationship? You have to com- municate! That sounds like a pat answer, but perhaps what makes it pat is that it’s truly difficult to cut through the noise and get the customer’s attention. And the methods of doing that are always evolving. After all, when was the last time you answered your hard-wired house phone to talk to a telemarketer? Twenty years ago, that was the most effective way to sell lawn care, but if you employ that method today, you’ll go bankrupt. I think that to answer this question, you need to consult with someone who understands communication trends and how they work. I’m not talking about an expensive consultant with a Ph.D., but rather someone like my daughters, who are in their mid-twenties. They don’t use the telephone, so they are utterly deaf to telemarketers. They don’t email, either. Lots of texting, though. And they have already pretty much made up their mind if they reach out to buy; that’s the power of having a professional website. It’s a brave new world out there. It will be interesting to see where this goes next. TE


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