Hiring the Right Commercial- HOA Landscaping Company
Establishing a landscape maintenance program for your commercial property, retail center or HOA landscaping is one of the most important things you can do to keep the aesthetics and overall value of your property manicured. There are a number of factors to keep in mind regarding the maintenance program and the hiring of a professional landscape maintenance contractor to perform your weekly landscaping services.
Establish a Solid Maintenance Program
Think about the overall image of the property itself. What does it convey to your customers, employees, tenants or the public? At the moment someone approaches your property, from the street to the front entrance, they are forming their first opinion.
What they are seeing or not seeing will enhance or detract from their perception of doing business with you, or working at your facilities. What does the property frontage look like? Are the frontages clean and debris free; is there seasonal color at the building entrances? Are the tree branches clear and free of walkways and signage? Is the lawns and flower beds weed free? How about the common areas? Is the turf green and vibrant? Is the landscape maintenance crew just mowing and blowing, or is the crew supervised and directed by a manager? If it’s an apartment community area with a clubhouse or pool, how is that area being maintained? Are lawn clippings being removed inside the patio area or are they being blown into the plant beds? Are shrubs naturally pruned and landscape beds well-manicured? Do all these areas compliment or detract from the appearance of your property?
Establishing a well Defined Landscape Specification
With a well detailed landscape maintenance specification intact, you have taken the first step to making that first impression of your property an experience of quality and professionalism.
Begin by evaluating your specific landscape requirements and commence from there. It’s important for you, if you are going to get several bids on your property, to establish site specific specifications. There are several reasons for this. First of all, you are setting the expectations and service standards for your landscape service provider. Second, you are establishing that all proposals are going to be including the same basic service. Third, it’s much simpler when you are reviewing the proposals during the interim stage to evaluate the additional services each company is providing.
For example, did one landscape company make the effort to include some items that were not included in the specifications, and document them in their proposal? Did the contractor take photos and present a report with suggestions for improvement? Did one of the contractors make any suggestions regarding improving water efficiency or improving its sustainability? Did anyone suggest that they present their bid in person so that they could explain and discuss pertinent details with upper management?
Remember, your specifications set the tone and expectations for all prospective bidders. An exceptional company will review your specifications in detail and will develop a landscape maintenance program tailored to your property, then use their expertise to suggest and improve the quality of their landscape program.
Important items that should be considered
Some of the basic items that you should include in your Request for Proposal are: the start date, water management and number of irrigation system checks performed, areas that need annual flowers, the frequency of shrub pruning, the number of lawn mowing’s per year, fertilization frequency, weekly blowing and cleanup. The RFP invitation should include the written landscape specifications, a landscape site map outlining the boundaries of the property, references of similar properties they maintain, with pertinent contact information, summary of staffs qualifications, licenses, certifications and professional designations, point of contact for emergencies and general requests. Also include a reasonable timeframe for all contractors to submit there proposal.
- Comparing Apples with Apples
- Be Aware of Low Ball Pricing
- Determine The Hours
The easiest way to find out how many hours they plan on spending on your property is to ask them for their hourly maintenance rate. Another way is to look at the contract proposal and see how much they charge per month for maintenance work. Ask for hourly rates for all service lines ie tree care, landscape improvements, irrigation repairs should be requested in your RFP. If not, ask them to include a line item rate for each service they offer, then do your math. If there maintenance rate is for example $32.00 per hour, you can figure the maintenance rate to be about 5% to 10% lower in some cases. Let’s use $32.00 per hour for this example.If the contract is for $1500.00 per month, that means they don’t want to exceed 11 man hours per week on your property. (The math is $1500/4.33 weeks per month = $346.42 per week. Then, divide $346.42 by the hourly wage they provided you, in our example its $32.00 and its 10.83 or 11 hours).Do this with all the quotes you receive. Keep inmind;mostservicecontractsareperformance-based, meaning they aren’t required to spend an exact amount of hours on your property, be aware of low hours and low bids, all bids are not made equal. It’s up to each contractor’s discretion, but this is how they determine their base fee, and they definitely don’t want to go over their base hours. If they do spend more time than they anticipated, they start losing money and that’s when the quality of work drops. Watch out for that!
Summary of Experience, History and Staff’s Qualifications
Consider asking for summary of experience that evidences the company’s history, how many years they have been in business and staff qualifications Quality assurance procedures that evidence the company’s communications, procedures, and service abilities
Send out your Landscaping RFP
Now that you have established the landscape specifications, you are ready to go out for bid. The first thing to discuss is the timing of the bid process. It’s important to note that professional and reputable landscape maintenance firms are generally very busy, with March and April being the busiest months of the year. If you wait until March or April to start looking for bids, you are doing a disservice to yourself and your property.
Once you have decided on several companies and sent out your RFP invitations three to four landscape contractors should be adequate, consider making a follow-up call and schedule a time to walk the property with the prospective landscape companies. This is a great time to get to know each company, show them the site specifics of the property, and discuss any landscape-related issues you have.
Making The Final Selection
Finally, it is time to make your selection. After you have a good feel for who you want to contract with, call the references provided by the companies. It is also a good idea to visit several of the properties currently being maintained by the contractors. If the references check out and the properties look good and you feel comfortable with their monthly pricing and hours you will want to meet with the rest of their team.
In the meeting some of the questions you might ask, “Is your staff uniformed?” Who will be my main point of contact and what is there academic back ground? “Are the service trucks clean and do they have logos prominently displayed on their vehicles?” “Will I have one point of contact assigned to my account or several?” “How are complaints and concerns handled, explain your process and time frame for handling complaints?” Does the onsite maintenance foreman assigned have a cell phone? What is your process for quality control and water management?”
This may seem like a lot of work to go through to hire the right landscape maintenance company, but in the long run, it will pay dividends. Hiring the right landscape maintenance company is a long-term commitment. By procuring your services with the right company and building a long term relationship with them, you will spend less time having to manage your landscape company and more time running your business.
Remember, the first impression is a lasting one, one that people will remember the most!
