Maintaining Your Lawn After The Pandemic

Posted on September 29th, 2022

Maintaining Lawn – Like most businesses, maintaining lawn and landscaping companies have had to suspend or change how they do business after the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if your business was lucky enough to be deemed essential and able to carry on operating during this time, you would have probably found that most people have been hesitant to go out to stores or have visitors in their homes. 

But there are many creative solutions to the problem of having fewer customers in-store or offering at-home services. If you can adapt quickly, you will find you won’t lose your customers. Instead, you have the chance to show them that you can adjust your offerings to suit the situation and how much effort you are willing to put into your services that support them. 

If you manage to engage and assist your customers during this time, you will build loyalty and keep your business top of mind when things return to normal. Your ability to innovate and use technology to your advantage will determine whether your business survives or thrives. 

This post looks at how landscaping companies can support their customers from afar, best practices for companies operating at customers’ premises, and how DIY garden care can be good for families. 

How Lawn Care Professionals Can Support Their Customers

Become a Resource

Many seasoned gardeners, and those new to the hobby, consult YouTube videos, blogs, and social media groups for advice. Why doesn’t your business strive to be a resource for your customers and your wider community? And this can also help to connect with neighbors and friends who are feeling isolated right now. 

Tips: 

1. Collect email addresses from your community (and your customers) to send gardening tips and tricks direct to those interested. 
2. Create a Facebook group for those interested in gardening in your community. You don’t only have to share lawn care and gardening tips, but you can post fun challenges on the group that neighbors can work towards together.  
3. Create short videos on topics helpful to your customers. Offer them easy ways to get a handle on the garden upkeep that you would usually help with. 

Virtual Consultations

Reach out to your existing customers and possible new contacts and let them know that you can offer virtual consultations even though you are unable to come to their homes. 

For landscaping projects, moving forward in this way shouldn’t be an issue. You can set up video chats, find out what the project’s scope is, ask for a video of the property along with instructions on what is wanted, and create your blueprint and design ideas for the client from this.

For regular garden maintenance and upkeep, ask your customers if they have any specific concerns that you can help with. Let them take you on a video walk-around of their garden where you can offer suggestions of simple things they can do to ensure their property thrives during this time. 

Discounts

There is nothing wrong with offering a reward to customers for supporting your business during this time or when the world opens up again, and they are happy to have you back at their home. Even offering discounted services to nurses and medical professionals will show your community that you genuinely care about your community. 

Best Practices for Lawn Care Professionals After COVID-19

For the most part, lawn care professionals are working outdoors. This makes their work environment a lot safer than most. But it is always best to consult with health and safety representatives and find out what control measures need to be put in place. 

Office staff should follow all the basic COVID-19 work procedures from screening staff, working from home where possible, practicing physical distancing, disinfection, cleaning, and sanitizing the workplace, especially high-touch areas, limiting the number of people in the workplace, etc. 

For lawn care workers going to other people’s properties: 

• Limit the sharing of equipment and tools
• Implement physical distancing measures
• Create smaller teams for your staff, and keep to the same people in each team 
• Consider job rotation, have few workers doing the same task on a work site
• Use multiple vehicles to transport staff to different properties
• Use appropriate personal protective equipment

Maintaining Lawn  and Your Own Garden Reduces Stress

Not only is gardening well-known to lower stress levels – which are at an all-time high during the pandemic – but it’s an excellent way for you and your family to stay active and healthy. And during this time of crisis, family gardening can play an essential role in bringing families together to focus on an outdoor project, away from technology and stressful news. 

Tips on how to get the children involved:

• Start with easy-to-grow flowers; this will keep them interested, especially younger kids
• Get them their own gardening tools and gloves
• Don’t worry if they wander off to collect flowers and sticks to make a potion or two; they are still having fun in the garden
• Help them create a fairy garden area, complete with little furniture and decorations
• Let them use the sprinklers and hoses when the weather is good. And let them get wet; it’s all part of the fun. 
• Create a bug and bird list for all the creatures they spot when in the garden

If you need more serious help, we offer virtual consultations. Maintaining your garden and lawn may feel overwhelming, so give us a call at Turf Unlimited, and we will be happy to provide you with some DIY tips to keep your garden flourishing until we can return and get stuck in ourselves.

How We Can Help

Turf Unlimited’s mission is to provide our customers with a thick, green, healthy landscape. We have set our goals on giving the two most essential ingredients to achieve this, water and nutrients. 

Whether you need an automatic sprinkler installation and or maintenance, a customer fertilization program, overseeding, tick spray, care for your trees and shrubs, or virtual consultation, the professionals at Turf Unlimited have you covered.

Contact us to find out why we’re the preferred lawn care professionals in the Northern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire areas.