Balancing the Art and Reality of Tree Service: Navigating the Challenges of Scheduling and Customer Satisfaction
Not only is tree care an art form itself, the task of scheduling multiple crews weekly to perform tree services is challenging. Keeping customers happy while maintaining your crew’s morale can get complicated. The reality of being a tree guy: you never know when you will be home. The biggest challenge of scheduling is calculating when your crews will be done for the day. It is nearly impossible, as a tree guy, to know if you’re coming home at 4PM one night, or 8PM the next. We understand the importance of work/life balance, and our crews are dedicated and understanding of the realities of working in a field such as this. We take pride in getting the job done right the first time, while prioritizing safety. Our company aims to exceed expectations, providing more than just a “tree service”, but rather something you can be proud of when you see your property.
The life cycle of a tree job; beginning with a phone call from the customer. Our office staff determines the customers needs, and sends a certified arborist to the property to evaluate and formulate a plan. The customer receives our proposal, signs and accepts it, and awaits their scheduled work date. We typically are booked out anywhere from 4-6 weeks, which makes giving a customer a date immediately after they accept impractical. Factors such as weather, staff calling in sick, etc. are all reasons why we give people tentative dates until we get closer to the time window. We email our customers 4-5 days prior to coming out, as well as a phone call reminder 1-2 days prior to the job. When our crew arrives on site, they must knock on your door, go over the accepted work order, and get to work.
We do everything in our power to work around our customers needs. Some people want to be home when their property is getting worked on, while others don’t have a preference. We understand that things come up, and are always more than willing to reschedule, postpone or sometimes rush jobs when we have the capacity to.
Navigating the Complexities of Tree Service Scheduling: Balancing Crew Routes, Job Efficiency, and Customer Satisfaction
When we are putting together routes, we have a work order with a dollar amount and description to go off. The arborist that put together the plan calculates the time for the job to be done. Office staff have a different mindset when approaching these things. This requires us to be diligent to do our best to ensure the crews have a good route and a steady day of work. Challenges arise when your guys finish a job much earlier than anticipated, or when things don’t go according to plan, and a 6 hour job turns into a 10 hour job. Keeping a list of customers we know are okay with us coming by last minute helps fill in the gaps when we have a crew knock out a job in half the time.
When scheduling jobs, we must allocate for things such as drive time, taking time to speak with customers, walk the property, ensure the entire crew is updated on any changes, clean up time, etc.
How do you determine how much time it will take to prune a tree? Various factors such as;
Location of the tree
A good drop zone is highly important, anything blocking the way or items in danger of being broken can pose challenges. This can also change the entire way the arborist has to approach pruning/removing the tree.
Structure of the tree
Any breaks/cracks in the tree can pose serious threat to safety and requires additional time to work around. These may only be seen once the climber is up in the tree, not visible from assessing on the ground.
How much pruning does the tree need?
Has your tree been consistently maintained in prior years, or is this the first prune the tree has had in 10 years?
We always do a final walkthrough with customers when they are home. If we missed a branch, or they see something they didn’t notice initially, our climbers will get back up there and fix any small details. With our company, you can be sure you will be satisfied with the outcome, and we will always address any concerns brought up.
Our company is a well working machine, with all parts in sync, but things happen, that is tree service. We take this into account especially when there are outside factors to consider before scheduling a job. We frequently work with utility companies like 811 (https://www.colorado811.org/ ) to set up locates when we are planting or stump grinding. When a locate is needed, we contact 811, who then does the locate and sends us the information about a week after. This has to be taken into consideration when giving customers a date, to ensure we didn’t overlook the locate needed and come too early. Stump grinding is done by a 3rd party, our good friend Sean with Kodiak Stump Grinding. https://www.kodiakstumps.com/ - Thank you Sean!
Once we have done a tree removal and cleaned up, we notify Sean that the stump is ready for him to grind. We then coordinate with him and our customer (usually about a week after the tree removal is done) for him to come out to finish the project. Our stance on tree work is to exceed expectations, keep trees healthy and our customers happy. We will continue to grow as a company and contribute to our community, helping to maintain the urban canopy.
Let us know if we can help with any tree care!
Tree Service Blog | Great Western Tree Care
Get professional tree care, tree pruning, removal, and lawn services from the certified arborists at Great Western Tree Care. Serving the Colorado area with high-quality tree service.