7 valuable Questions Ask Before Hiring A Landscape Service Contractor
WARNING! Never hire any landscape service or landscaper to care for your lawn without asking these seven questions.These questions will help protect your and your property.
1. Who pays for injuries or damages?
Many “companies carry no licensing or Insurance. If any of these companies damages anything, or they are injured, you the homeowner can find yourself financially responsible, including if one of the workers falls and breaks a leg. Another tactic of fraudulent businesses is to start an insurance policy and not pay their premiums. They carry an evidence of insurance form that is not valid. Our Difference: Crider Landscaping is both licensed and insured. Our $2,000,000 Commercial Liability policy gives you and us protection for your home or business. Once we provide you with our evidence of insurance, we also provide the contact information where you can verify coverage. This is what every reputable company should provide.
2. Where do you get your landscape service employees?
A secret fact is many landscape companies hire felons or illegals, those who cannot get jobs “anywhere” else. It is possible for homeowners to be penalized for allowing illegals to perform work on their property. In addition, with the close proximity to your property and family, felons may not be whom you want around your loved ones. Our Difference: Crider Landscaping only employs individuals who are licensed to work in the United States. Before hiring, our employees get a background check and have to be able to pass a drug test. We want to ensure that we can trust our employees and more importantly that you can trust us. We want responsible workers.
3. How long have you been doing landscape service work?
Someone can claim to be a landscaper with only a truck and shovels and possibly a push mower. Meaning year to year there are new “landscapers” that are in their first year of business with little to no experience and are learning on your property. We hear many stories of homeowners paying good money to someone who absolutely ruins their yard. Our Difference: At Crider Landscaping, our new staff is trained by our veteran staffers to ensure the best possible service. We have several staff members that have been working in landscaping since their teens. Therefore, Crider Landscaping staff and employees have many years of experience in Landscaping.
4. Will you take care of my yard after improvements?
Some installation companies are just that, landscape installation companies. They install your landscape and that is the last you hear from them. If your plants die – oh well. They have finished their part and been paid. Besides, they will claim you are the reason the plants died and you did not properly maintain the plants. Our Difference: At Crider Landscaping, we are capable of maintaining your landscape after installation to ensure that it is always looking its best and your plants are cared for properly.
5. Will you give me a written landscape service contract and guarantee?
Many companies do not offer any contracts therefore leaving a lot of gray area when it comes to your landscape maintenance and installation services. Without contracts, you are not completely protected in what services you will receive. Our Difference: At Crider Landscaping, we offer maintenance agreements and Installation contracts outlining exactly what services you can expect from us. With these agreements in place, you can be assured you are receiving exactly the services you are paying for. You might also want to check out our guarantee!
6. How much of a down payment do you require for landscape services?
Many companies require deposits of 90% or more, and you hear many stories about the contractors that took deposits and never showed up. Do not be one of those stories. Companies that operate with sound business practices should not need deposits of 50% or more. Our Difference: Many times, we do not require any prepayments. Reputable landscapers have relationships with vendors, allowing us to purchase materials on our accounts. However, at times, we may require deposits for certain projects or portions, but our required deposits will never exceed 50% of the project. Generally or larger projects a paid in increments of 50% - 25% - 25%
7. Why are you so expensive? OR Why are you so cheap?
Many companies have to charge much more than us because most if not all of their equipment is financed, they work out of high profile offices with higher rents and are trying to act as if “corporate executives” while you the client pays for the additional costs. Our Difference: We operate our company on minimal debt; we rent equipment when necessary and work diligently on keeping our operating costs low. We do not have high monthly debt payments that lead to higher operating costs, costs that are passed on to you. We also purchase equipment used when possible in order to lower equipment cost. However, we are a professional company who invests in quality equipment and employees to ensure a great job and a good experience for our clients. We also provide insurance, worker’s comp., bonding and maintain state licensing requirements.