04 Mar Choosing The Right Landscaping Company
Some helpful tips to make choosing the right landscaping company simpler
In the information age it has never been easier to find out what you need to know in order to hire the right landscaping company for the job. No matter if it is a small job or a large one, you still need to make sure that the landscaping company you choose is reliable and trustworthy and that they actually know what they are doing.
You should start by finding out how long the landscaping company has been in business, the longer the better. If they have been in business for 15 years or more, then there’s a much better chance that they are good at what they do and will have the reputation and customer testimonials to back it up. Of course there are exceptions to this, but it is a pretty good rule of thumb. Most landscaping companies grow through customer referrals and repeat business, so any company with 15 or more years of service is a good sign of happy customers.
Don’t stop at the age of the company however. You still need to find out how well run a landscaping company is. Look at it this way: most landscaping companies are small businesses that only have a few people working there. The owners end up having to do the bulk of the work on their own. That is why many landscaping companies are not always as reliable as they should be. Like other contractors they have a lot on their plate and they can, at times, get overwhelmed and not show up for a job when they were supposed to. Choosing a landscaping company where the owner has a small staff both in the office and out in the field is the best scenario for a home owner. This size landscaping company is ‘just right’ because the owner is still heavily involved in the day-to-day, probably spends a good portion of time working with the crews, but has enough staff in place to prevent from falling behind.
“There’s a sweet spot for a good landscaping company. Just enough office help and manpower to keep customers happy, but still able to take on new business when there’s growth,” said Ralph Dinizo, President of Truesdale Nursery & Landscape Services of Berkeley Heights, N.J in a recent interview. “We’ve been doing this for 18 years, so we’ve learned what works. Whether it’s estate management, wall and patio work, computer imagery, walkways, landscaping, or whatever the need – we have the people in place to handle it. But we’re not sitting around either; we have enough work to keep our crews busy, even through the winter.”
That is why it’s a good idea to find out how many clients a potential landscaping company has and the number of ‘crews’ they have at the time you are going to hire them. If they sound as if they’ll be too busy then you might want to choose another landscaping company, one that will have the time and staff that you need. You need to choose a landscaping company that will be dedicated to the work that you need to get done, you are paying for a service and you deserve for it to be as good as it can be.