At Lawntech we pride ourselves on having the best lawn technicians in our industry. We only recruit highly qualified, skilled and experienced people from the turf care industry who then also go through our own intensive training programme.
Each one of our technicians looks after a territory which is home to 350 – 400 clients. With at least five treatment visits to make for every one of them and only 252 working days in a year (less, when you take into account their holidays), you can see they’re very busy people indeed.
You’ve probably never wondered what a day in the life of one of our technicians looks like, but you may be surprised at how much they need to cram in…
Jon Oostendorp is one of Lawntech’s Senior Technicians, and also one of two Lawntech Ambassadors. Who better to ask about life on the road with the south’s leading independent lawn care providers?
Jon Oostendorp, Senior Lawntech Technician and your guide for this article
So Jon, allowing for the fact that there is no such thing as an average day in real life, what does an average lawn treatment day look like for you?
“Monday mornings tend to be an early 06.30 start because we meet with other technicians at 07.15 at Lawntech HQ to get our vans set up and loaded for the week. The remainder of the week I’m on the road straight from home by 07.30, heading for my first client of the day. Most of the time we aim for a 5.00pm finish, but in the busy times of spring and autumn it can be a lot later, sometimes as long as daylight allows when we are in Renovation Season. Each evening I plan my route for the following day using Lawntech’s mobile technology, taking into account the sizes of lawns I’ll be visiting and expected traffic. Experience tells you which routes to avoid at what times of day. Like all my colleagues, I live on the territory I cover, so we all know the best and worst roads to be on at any given time of day. Each of us will get to know our clients’ lawns and the prevailing conditions there, so we’ll also take weather into account when planning our journeys.“
How many calls might that involve?
“The time of the year has a big effect on that. At this time of year (autumn) it will be anything between 12 and 14 treatment visits per day, while in the longer days of Summer it’s usually 16 to 18, but on a very busy day it can be anything up to 23!”
In addition to those regular treatments though, you all carry out Estimate Visits for potential new clients and Service Calls for existing ones who need special attention for a variety of reasons. How many of these might you need to include in a working day?
Here’s Jon again, carrying out a lawn survey
“For both of those kind of calls we have to allow more time than a regular treatment visit, so we tend not to have any more than 2 surveys added to a day”.
That’s a lot of visits! You must rack up a lot of miles in the process. How many?
“On average, anything between 50 – 150 miles per day. This varies between urban and rural areas. Most of our territories have a mixture of urban and rural locations, and there is a big difference in covering a densely-populated area such as Bournemouth compared with my round which covers North Wiltshire. Bournemouth has a lot of lawns in a comparatively tighter geographical area so you can fit more calls into the day than you can for the clients who live in rural spots, where you spend so much more time driving from village to village. Either way, the company as a whole takes its carbon footprint very seriously and between and ourselves and our colleagues in the office we do everything we can to keep the mileage down. Keeping our rounds as tight as possible means we’re operating more efficiently and burning less fuel.
Another of our Senior Lawn Technicians, Adam Reeves, at the start of a busy day
“The other thing to bear in mind with route planning and the number of calls we make is that there are two occasions in every year when we apply two treatments per visit. This tends to mean 12 visits and 24 treatments in total per day, so it certainly keeps us on our toes.”
We all know that you need to be physically fit to be a lawn technician. Have you ever used a pedometer to see just how far you walk in a day?
Walking many miles while scarifying a bowling green
“Yes I have. It’s normally in the region of 18,000 – 25,000 steps per day, which works out between 9.5 and 13 miles per day but my personal record was set during this year’s Renovation Season. That day I walked 40,000 steps, which is 21.12 miles. It’s no wonder we get through so many pairs of boots!”
While you’re on the subject of Renovation Season, which takes place between August and October, is that a whole different ball game when it comes to the way you guys have to operate?
Lawntech’s Ian Clement, relieved after removing this huge skipful of thatch from a client’s lawn
“That’s right. Lawntech prides itself on providing the most thorough Lawn Renovations available, which includes carrying out scarification, aeration, over-seeding and top-dressing so this makes for a very gruelling, physically-demanding, but satisfying couple of months. Regular treatments are not carried out during this season, so we can concentrate all our resources on those renovation. Depending on the size of the lawn and its situation, this can often mean more than one technician being assigned to a client’s lawn. Heavy duty equipment needs to be transported on trailers, which often requires some complex juggling of manpower and resources”.
Back to the question of an ‘average day’; When you get to your clients’ lawns, it’s not just about throwing down the treatments and scooting off to the next one, is it?
“No, certainly not. One of the many things that sets Lawntech apart is the way we value communication. Building rapport with our clients is very important to us all. Face to face communication is always best for us and the clients love the continuity of having their own dedicated technician. They can rest assured that most times they’ll be seeing the same face they’re used to, and know they can talk about their lawn with the tech being familiar with its development. Even in the darkest days of Covid, we’ve been able to keep up the contact and discuss what we’re seeing on their lawns with them directly.
Here’s our Adam again, discussing the health of a lawn with his clients
Our clients know that we all assess their lawns on every visit to make sure they’re healthy and make any recommendations for additional treatments where necessary. If they’re not there when we visit and there’s something about their lawn we need to highlight, we often shoot a short customer service video to bring it to their attention. Good customer service is always key for us, and our clients can take comfort in knowing that we’ll spend just as much time tending their lawn if they’re not there as when they are. The quality of the service doesn’t waver if you’re there to see us or not”.
You mentioned the customer service videos just now, and I know a lot of our clients love them as it’s such a great way to keep up the personal contact even when they don’t see you in person. You have a lot of high tech kit to help you these days. How big a help is that?
“It’s a massive help, both for us technicians and the clients. We’ve gone virtually paperless in many aspects of our service, and our mobile devices enable us to complete Service Summary Reports as soon as we’ve treated a lawn. These reports are then emailed direct to the client immediately, so even if they’re offsite it means they can receive a full update on the condition of their lawn, the treatments their technician has applied and any recommendations he may have for them”.
As well as the high tech stuff, you also need to carry and look after a great deal of specialist lawn care kit. That needs a lot of respect and TLC, to keep it in top working order?
Another of Lawntech’s Senior Lawn Technicians, Alan Stubbington, gets to grips with some regular kit maintenance
“Yes, for sure. Our lawn treatment year is divided into seasonal periods, so we plan Seasonal Kit Days for regular maintenance, with repairs where necessary. We all hold stocks of spares on our vans for running repairs, and of course we have fully equipped maintenance and jetwash bays at our depot in Dinton. Those Kit Days are useful opportunities for the techs to have training courses, certification refreshers and generally get together and compare notes. We work together as a team throughout the year, often helping each other out when one of us might be grateful for another pair of hands at the end of a long day.”
So that takes care of the equipment you use day-to-day, what about the consumables you need to treat the clients’ lawns?
“We all start the week at the yard on Monday morning and load our vans with all the equipment and consumables we need for that week. This would include all the treatments (either in granular or liquid form, sometimes both, depending on the climatic conditions), the appropriate kit for the season and of course a small stock of seed for topping-up after Lawn Renovations. Each of the technicians also has an individual area of responsibility, and mine is to maintain stocks of PPE at the depot and distribute it when required”.
I know Lawntech is very thorough on all aspects of vehicle maintenance and legal compliance. Those things are overseen by our Operations Manager, Toni Norris, at HQ, but breakdowns and accidents are an unfortunate fact of life. Even more so when you multiply things by ten, so what is Lawntech’s contingency for this?
“You’re right, unfortunately these things can’t be avoided so we have a fully-stocked spare van ready to go at the depot for any eventuality. This includes scheduled maintenance of course, so it’s a very valuable asset for us to have and life would be a lot more complicated without it!”
And while you’re out there on the road, I suspect you’re not just sitting there daydreaming at the wheel, are you?
“No. Each tech takes ‘ownership’ for his own corner of the business. This includes knowing as much as we can about what’s going on where we are, many of us have additional roles which keep us involved with the management side of things. We keep an eye on the lawn care industry, so we know what’s happening and if there is anything new or revolutionary we can bring to the company. We also keep an eye out for other garden specialists, as we’re often asked if we can recommend someone local for grass cutting or general gardening. It’s important to keep a finger on the pulse of whatever is happening on our individual territories”.
As always, Jon, there’s more to all this than meets the eye. From what you’ve just described, it sounds like a day in the life of a Lawntech Technician might involve being all of the following, in addition to treating lawns…
Driver
Route Planner
Customer Relations Manager
Diplomat
IT technician
Camera Operator and Voiceover Artist
Administrator
Report Writer
Quartermaster
Vehicle / Machine Fitter
Vehicle Valeter
Intelligence Gatherer and Market Analyst. Does that cover it?
“In a nutshell, that sums it up quite nicely. Thank you very much.”
Thank YOU for giving us a glimpse into your grassy world, Jon.
If you like the sound of a working life like Jon’s and are considering a career as a Lawn Technician, Lawntech would like to hear from you. Please visit the Careers page on our website for more details;
