(Wi)

Reluctantly I mowed a customer who is selling his home last Saturday and in addition is a late payer. He calls me up and stated the realtor stated the lawn needed mowed the back yard was getting high. He and his wife were out of town at the time. Anyway, so I load up the equipment and commence to mow the lawn. Just as I was finishing up a car pulls up behind the trailer. A lady steps out and asks if I would go by and see if I could mow her sons home he just purchased in the neighborhood. "Sure right after I mow my customer." "Thank you, and here the address and my phone number." So I go over to this new address and measure up the lawn for service. I forgot my phone that day which was very unusual for me so I can not call her to tell her the price. So, I decided to go ahead and mow. When I get home which was close to the evening when I started that day. (all caught up during the week with my other accounts) I quote the price. She stated they wanted the lawn mowed every week and that she would drive by to see the job. The next day she call and says "the lawn looked great!" now I would like for you to mow my sons now home that he and his wife were moving out of."
So, what's the conclusion?
I didn't like the fact to mow someone who pays late but, because I did we now have a new customer, Hummmm.......I just might have to look to see if my late paying customer should be now canceled
What do you think?

Fumbleweed

Maybe just charge a late fee unless it continues to happen or they don't pay that either, then stop mowing.

S.I.

I just incorporated a new policy for late payment repeat offenders.
Option 1:
Deposit - 1 month service (non-refundable)
They can't get behind because at 30 days service is suspended and deposit will cover. If they ever cancel service or you decide to drop them (these people are hard to get money out of) then the deposit will cover 30day cancellation period

Option2:
Prepay - All services
This will obviously get rid of late payment problems, they either go somewhere else (not a big loss if they do) or they pay upfront. No pay, no service.

As for the new customer don't charge for mowing before delivering bid - give her the mowing as a "thank you" for "letting" your company give her an estimate. This will give a good impression, and avoid any issues if she doesn't like the price you quote.

Greywolf

I am a proponent of the security deposit. If they happen to be late then I'm covered already because they already paid me.

kompik

I'm not sure about the prepay option. While it might save you some pain I think you will lose a lot of potential customers because they might not like having to pay up front for services.

thejoker1247

You could also charge them a penalty like if you were to pay a cable bill late.

haul0348

Moving is a pain in the butt but still your service to him cant be swept under thye rug. I would try and contact the customer directly for a 1 on 1 heads up and decide from there how to handle the problem. I have a few that pay for the entire season up front because i give them a little % discount. And the ones that pay as they go i call and meet them for payment. It really depends on how well you know the customer and how much you can trust them. The last customer that pulled that crap on me i just kept faxing the same bill with the date highlighted and they finally payed me.

ChadB

It seems like the late payers are always the same people.
If you talk with other lawn care operators in your area and compare notes, the same ol people pay everyone late.

These are the same people who always have a reason to swap lawn companies. They say it's because of bad service, etc but if you get down to it they pay so slow the lawn care companies have stopped doing work for them in most cases.....

It would be nice to have a site that listed trouble customers by area

Just my cents.
Chad.

haul0348

How did it turn out Wi did they ever pay up?

LeeJ

Would be interesting to know, late payers annoy me!

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