These days homeowners love the idea of home subscription services. There seems to be something for every aspect of life—meal planning and cooking, pet supplies, personal care—and now even lawn care! But are lawn care subscription kits like Sunday Lawn Care and Scotts Subscription Lawn Care an actual threat to professional lawn care services?
Some lawn care companies might see it that way. As homeowners are often looking for things that will simplify their life, lawn care subscription services might seem like the answer. It’s cheaper than hiring a pro but is touted as having everything the homeowner needs to achieve the lawn care results that they desire. The products they need to apply to their lawn show up in a neat and tidy box right on their doorstep. For many, this is an appealing concept.
To help you better compete against these types of kits, it will help to have an understanding of where they may fall short. Educating clients on how professional services are superior could be the key to successfully competing.
Here are a few points that you can make to your clients considering these subscription kits.
Lawn care in a box is an oversimplified approach
The very thing that potentially attracts homeowners to a subscription service—that it seems to make life “simpler”—could actually be its downfall. The truth is that lawn care is pretty complicated. There’s more to it than just spraying some weed control or fertilizer on the yard. Oftentimes, the products used need to be customized to exactly what’s going on with the lawn at that moment. Your clients need to understand that their lawn’s needs can be complex and varied.
Lawn care subscription services can’t offer real-time diagnostics
One of the biggest advantages to hiring a professional lawn care service is that the client has a well-trained pro looking at their lawn and spotting potential problems early on. But with a lawn care subscription service, your clients lose the value of having that professional “eye” on their property. That means if they have a potential disease or pest problem brewing, the onus is on them to figure out what’s going on.
Lawn care kits still fall short of everything a lawn needs
Of course, there are some lawn care services that simply can’t be included in a kit. Services like lawn aeration and overseeding—or even certain insect control treatments—are going to be services that your clients still need to have performed. It’s important that they understand not everything their lawn needs can be found in a box.
A DIY approach will likely get subpar results
The fact that a professional is able to use their knowledge and experience coupled with commercial-grade lawn care products (which are naturally going to be higher quality than what a consumer can use) is obviously going to yield better results. While the lawn care products found in a subscription box might be able to get decent results, your clients should know they’ll likely be subpar to what a professional could accomplish.
DIY lawn care doesn’t remove the hassles or headaches
Finally, the fact that your clients still have to get out on their lawns and perform these services is a major downside to a subscription service that they might not be thinking about. One of the benefits of hiring a professional is that they also let go of the worries—including the hassles and the headaches—associated with performing their own lawn care. With a pro handling the work, they don’t have to find free time on the weekends to get these tasks done.
Hopefully, by being armed with some information about subscription lawn care services and the ways in which they may not fully meet your clients’ needs, you can help people to continue to see the value in hiring a pro.
