Lisa P.
09/07/2019 12:00:00 SA
You don't want to work with this company and the owner's bad attitude. I agreed to have Lucas Lawn & Yard Care service my yard back in December. I met with Ryan at my house, he looked at the property, and provided a quote based on his experience running his business since 1994. He insisted that I sign a Service Agreement with him. Today, he emailed me to tell me that my rate is increasing by 67% because it is taking more time than he thought. He has decided that the terms of the Service Agreement do not apply to him. He also insisted when I signed up that he do a one-time cleanup and spray pre-emergent (which didn't work very well) for $405. All of this was factored into my budget for landscaping. I tried to explain to him that what he is doing is called bait and switch, but he doesn't get it. He's going to respond to this review the exact same way that he has responded to all of the others. I'm right and you're wrong.
I've posted his original email to me and my response. I wish that I could post his full, long-winded, nonsensical, response which blames me for his inability to quote a job and run an efficient business, but Yelp says that I'm out of space so I gave you a partial. You decide.
Here's the meat of his original email to me: Thank you for choosing Lucas Lawn Care to offer you regular service the last 4 months. When I give a service price for a new customer the price is basically a guess as to how long on average, I think the crew is going to need to be on site each visit. Now that we have some history of visits, I can figure out an average. That average shows the men are just needing to take a little longer than expected to service your yard. So, I need to raise your price by $74 per visit starting in May. I have talked to Javier and he has confirmed that the yard is going to need this amount of time on average to keep it looking the way you have been asking him to keep it.
My response: This is an outrageous bait and switch tactic. Shame on you. You, the expert, who has been in business since 1994 came to my house, looked at my yard, and told me the cost to take care of it on a monthly basis. I agreed to pay you to $405 to do a one-time cleanup even though you were taking over immediately from my previous company. I agreed to pay more for your service than I had been paying previously and I even agreed to pay $130 for a pre-emergent service that was intended to keep the cost of service down for a year, but doesn't work very well (there are currently lots of weeds on my property (the day after service) - see attached example photo taken this morning). I even signed a Service Agreement with you. Now, after 4 months including the months with the most growth that will take the longest to service, you send an email telling me that you plan to disregard your service agreement and raise my rate 67% because it is taking more time than you expected?
Javier and his crew do a nice job and I hate to lose that service, but I have not asked him to keep the yard the way I like it beyond pointing out items that should be taken care of in the normal course of service. Yesterday when he was here, the only things I asked were to trim the overgrowth on the 2 trees near the front door that he could reach from ground level and to make sure that the hedge was taken care of since it was not addressed on his last visit.
I see two options here. The first is that you continue to honor your service agreement and commitments at the price we have agreed. I am not looking for perfection. I am willing to have a little bit less service if that helps. The second option is that we part ways and I post reviews detailing your bait and switch tactics so that your future customers will be warned. Under the second option, you will also immediately refund the $130 that I paid for the pre-emergent service since my new landscaper will include the cost of dealing with the weeds in their price and will not recognize that I already paid for this ineffective service.
His response: Since the bait and switch item will not be on any other reviews potential new customers will not see a pattern. Also there are so many 5 star reviews they will question yours more at being a one star.
Our service agreement has a 30 day notice of cancelation that either party can cancel not an annual 12 month contract. so we can part ways now if you want since I contacted you the next day after a visit or you can get one more visit from us and that will be our last visit making it an official 30 calendar days. My guys will know to only spend the time that your price is buying so that last visit would be less work than what has been happening. I'm not trying to make things hard for you or emotional, again I just want to make sure my company is making something on each visit vs nothing. What would be the point in a company servicing a yard and loose money? I'm sure you get paid to do your job, correct.