As a property manager for a multi-location business, all eyes are on you to make a wise choice in landscaping services for national accounts. You are the one managing all of the vendor relationships, and your commercial landscaper is likely one of your largest vendors. That’s why it’s so important that you choose wisely.
Whether you’ve made these decisions before and weren’t completely thrilled with your options or you’re choosing for the first time, you might be wondering how to best narrow down the options.
Here are some questions that you should ask as you look to choose landscaping services for your multi-location business. We hope that answering these questions will help you find the best company for your needs.
One of the most common questions that will come up is whether the commercial landscape company you’re considering is truly large enough to handle your multi-location business. Whether you’re looking for landscaping services for big box stores or for another type of business with multiple locations, it’s easier for you to work with one national landscaping company rather than several different local companies.
First, this will help ensure the consistency of quality work. But there are other essential benefits, which are discussed in more detail in the article we’ve linked to above. These include access to better equipment, more investment in technology and training, and likely more emphasis on the best hiring practices.
But even if you’ve narrowed it down to working with one national company (rather than multiple local ones), you know that some national companies are larger and more robust than others. You still want to make sure that the national company you’re choosing is large enough to handle your multi-location needs.
When it comes to ensuring the quality of the work is consistent across all of your locations, it’s important to find a company that is large enough to handle a larger percentage of the work themselves - in-house, with their own employees.
You’d be surprised when you begin to look into large companies and see how many of them subcontract the work out to smaller, local providers. That means that even though you’ve intentionally chosen a national company for the benefits that accompany this choice, that you could still end up with many different local landscape companies performing the work.
The problem with this is the consistency of the service and the quality. It can be very difficult to manage the quality of subcontractors’ work as they’re likely all trained different ways and don’t have standard operating procedures.
Insurance is a big deal when it comes to landscaping services for national accounts. It’s not enough to just know that the company carries insurance, you also want to make sure it’s enough insurance.
Don’t just take their word for it. Ask that they provide insurance documentation. Your commercial landscape company should be able to provide you with proof of adequate coverage for liability, worker’s compensation, automobile, and umbrella policies.
Insurance is really a question that falls under the larger category of safety. You want to make sure that the commercial landscape company you are hiring takes safety seriously. The truth is, not all commercial landscape contractors are equally safety conscious and this can be very problematic for you as a buyer of landscape services.
The best way to find out how seriously a company takes safety is to ask about their practices and their training.
This should include steps such as avoiding parking on main roadways which would cause traffic disruptions, using cones to mark vehicles, and always ensuring that crews are wearing safety vests and proper PPE. Of course, crews should also be well-trained and highly experienced in utilizing the equipment.
While safety is at the forefront, it’s also about common courtesy, too. Will the landscape contractor turn off their blowers if visitors or tenants are walking by? This might sound obvious but you’ve likely had some sort of interaction with an inconsiderate landscaping crew at a retail shopping center, hotel, a park, or some other property. When the “seemingly small” details aren’t discussed, small acts of consideration get overlooked. And even though it’s not your company’s employees acting inconsiderately, it’s still a negative reflection on your business.
Finally, it comes down to hiring landscaping services for multi-location businesses that understand how their work reflects on the company they’re working for—and that it’s your reputation at stake.
At Yellowstone Landscape, we have invested heavily in safety training because we understand it’s an area where there’s no room for compromise. Our goal is to be proactive in our safety policies and prevent problems before they happen. Unfortunately, too many companies manage safety reactively and only deal with problems after they happen.
A final (and maybe the most important) question you should consider before hiring landscaping services for your multi-location business is what your experience is going to be like with the account manager. When it comes to simplifying your life and taking some of the burdens off of your plate, this is pretty important.
Ideally, you want a single point of contact and one national contract.
This is the best way to streamline the process. After all, you already have so many tasks and responsibilities to manage. The last thing that you need is to make time for a different account managers from multiple landscape contractors you work with. It can really make the entire process seem overwhelming. So often, it ends up with you being stuck in a bunch of different games of telephone tag. You’ll likely feel as though you aren’t receiving optimal communication.
This is why having a single point of contact and one national contract for all of your locations will save you a significant amount of time (plus a whole lot of hassles and headaches). Whether you have 3 locations or you have 300, you just want to feel confident that everything is being handled exactly as it should without you having to constantly stay on top of your vendors across all your locations.
At Yellowstone, it’s our goal to help simplify the process for property managers like you who are overseeing multiple locations.
We want to serve as your eyes and ears at each property and remove that burden from your plate. You’ll be able to feel confident that each property is being inspected regularly and issues are being addressed as they arise. Then, we’ll keep you in the loop with regularly scheduled weekly calls and standardized reports. In turn, you’ll free up so much of your time to deal with other tasks.
We understand that there’s a lot riding on your decision to choose the best commercial landscaping service for your multi-location business. As a property manager, the choice that you make will ultimately be a direct reflection of you. When things go well, you shine. But when mistakes are made, it’s your reputation on the line. That’s something that your commercial landscape company should take seriously.
Hopefully, by asking some of these questions above, you’ll have the opportunity to make an informed choice that will help make you look good. Just as important, your wise choice in a commercial landscaping partner should also help remove some of the stress you deal with and provide you with peace of mind that your properties are in good hands.
At Yellowstone Landscape, we understand that it’s a big deal to be chosen to handle the landscaping services for national accounts. We understand that if we don’t live up to a property manager’s expectations that it’s their job on the line. It’s something that we take very seriously.
That’s why it’s our goal to help make you look good while also making things easier on you. If you’re looking for a company that can help simplify commercial landscaping for your multi-location business, that’s exactly what we offer.
The clients that we work with appreciate that we are able to maintain consistency and quality, reduce their risks and liability, and offer a single point of contact to make life easier. All of this means you can focus your time and energy on other tasks and let go of the everyday worries about commercial landscaping.
Are you ready to hire the best landscape company for your multi-location business? Request a quote and let us answer any additional questions that you may have.