Onboarding New Clients: How Commercial Landscaping Operators Capture Site Preferences From Day One

A poor intake process can have negative effects throughout your contract not limited to the first week where you would hopefully get up to speed.

Onboarding is where that gap opens.

Why commercial landscaping client onboarding breaks down in the field

Many commercial landscaping companies are struggling with the sales handoff. The information collected by an account manager during the sales process with a potential new client is generally collected during the proposal process. Some of this information is documented but most is stored within the account manager’s brain, their inbox, or on their smart phone using a notes app that nobody else has access to.

Then a crew shows up.

Work order with Property address and Service code is passed to the Crew Lead typically the Crew Lead would NOT have access to property management contact information, ie name. Also specific details at a property such as; the southeast entrance of the property is blocked by delivery truck every Tuesday. # of ornamental beds on a property that a Client wants hand-weeded NOT chemically treated. grass to be cut to a specific height as stipulated in HOA lease agreement. Typically the Crew Lead would CALL the office for this information.

The office checks for notes from the previous call, realizes there are gaps, calls the account manager in hopes that he can fill the gaps by trying to figure out when the crew will arrive or by setting up a callback. Meanwhile the crew shows up at the jobsite with the truck parked at the curb.

It's not a staffing problem. It's a capture-and-deliver problem. Information exists. It just has not been captured or structured in a way that can be found when needed.

What structured client onboarding looks like for landscaping operators

The onboarding process for a commercial landscaping company is typically broken into three separate stages.

Intake: Consistently gathering a client’s preferences at intake (at the client’s first visit to the system). This is NOT for clients to complete preferences PDF and have it filed. It’s a conversation with defined questions added to a shared tool as opposed to completed preferences PDF’s being added and then forgotten.

Translation. That intake of work becomes a set of standing instructions for a crew lead as opposed to just the account manager. "Client prefers minimal chemical treatment" needs to become "use mechanical edging on beds A, C, and E; confirm with site contact before any spray application." Abstract preferences are useless in the field.

Delivery. The simple act of delivering information to the correct people at the correct time. A nicely created site profile in a CRM system is of little value to a crew lead if he is unable to download it on his smart phone at 6:45 a.m. The information has to travel.

In translation and delivery, however, things start to go wrong for most operators.

The site preference data that actually matters for commercial landscaping clients

Client information differs between administrative use and operational needs—what on-site work a crew must do and how to ensure the client gets the best possible experience when they visit their property.

The categories that matter most:

Contact hierarchy. The contact for scope changes while on site, the contact for problems, and the contact for approval of invoices are typically different people and many people mistakenly assume that they are not and run into problems on the ops side and the billing side as a result.

Service constraint - Access / Timing: Codes for gates. Loading dock details. Any restrictions on parking at a site. Any days when a site will be inaccessible due to a tenant being out of the office or due to building management rules. This should be recorded in the service record not just in an email at the start of the month.

Additional Information (plant/hort specific details) Species to protect (in particular) Locations where use of chemicals are absolutely prohibited (ie children’s play area, bodies of water, etc…). Grass height. Seasonal needs (for example: keep main entrance looking good during times of high traffic etc…).

Communication preferences: Property managers have different preferences with communication with the site manager. Some property managers would like to receive a visit summary on the same day that the visit took place. Others would like to be called on the day of the visit if something looks unusual and then a note in the next report. Some managers would like to see everything and be contacted every time the site manager visits the property. Others would like no contact at all unless something goes wrong.

Document all information (e.g. contact details, job site photos, site maps, documentation on existing issues etc.) systematically on the first visit (or even better before the visit) and the crew lead in month 6 will have access to same institutional knowledge as the account manager had in month 1.

How to turn captured preferences into standing crew instructions for landscaping accounts

Onboarding information collected will die in 2 places: 1) A CRM field that no one checks; 2) A PDF attachment that no one opens.

That information must be translated into a format crews actually use—short action statements at each site rather than buried in account notes.

A few practical steps that hold up in the field:

Write instructions in crew language, not client language. "Client values aesthetic presentation at the main entrance" becomes "Edge and blow main entrance clean on every visit regardless of time constraints elsewhere on site." One is a sentiment. The other is a standing order.

Site preferences should be attached to the site record not the contact record. A clients property manager can change many times during the term of a contract and for this reason alone site preferences should be set on the site record at the property address for that site not on a contact record. This ensures that even if a clients property manager changes site preferences for that site will not be lost.

Schedule a 30 day check-in. After one month of service it is good to call and verify that your standing instructions are the same as what your client’s experience has been. Often a client's preference(s) prior to LemonLime's service are different than what they actually experience once LemonLime has begun to render service. It is much easier to identify and correct any discrepancies in a client's preference(s) in the month that LemonLime begins rendering service as opposed to in month 8.

Note everything the crew finds out that was not previously captured at intake. For example, if you discover a drainage problem in a particular bed that has not previously been documented or find out that a new tenant has a sign up at intake that will affect your access to that tenant in the future, this type of information is lost as institutional knowledge if not documented as part of the field work and then put into the account file.

Where LemonLime fits into a commercial landscaping operation

This intake process for preferences creates information for the work of others. While most operators do collect preferences, the biggest challenge is that this information gets scattered and ends up in a HubSpot deal note, in a Slack channel with an account manager, in a Google Doc from month two, and in a QuickBooks job description that is not updated after the first change of scope.

LemonLime connects to the tools a commercial landscaping operation already uses, pulls that scattered information together automatically, and builds a structured knowledge layer that AI can retrieve and reason over. No upload process. No IT project. Whether a crew lead needs site specific information about a property they have never been to before, or an account manager wants to provide new hire to client information regarding that client’s preferences without having to sift through a year’s worth of email correspondence, LemonLime’s knowledge layer has got you covered.

Layering on more information over time. New notes on a deal record in the CRM. A preference recorded in a Slack message after a call with a client or partner. A change in scope logged in the accounting system (e.g. QuickBooks). All this information is rolled back into one system so there is no need to enter it all again in another system.

For commercial landscaping companies managing a large number of properties and multiple crews, this information is the difference between said information being in the head of one employee, versus being available to the whole organization.

LemonLime is currently accepting waitlist applications at lemonlime.ai. If your intake process is already solid but your delivery problem is real, that's where to start.

Frequently asked questions about commercial landscaping client onboarding

Why does my crew keep calling the office for information they should already have?

Most of these problems are delivery problems, not capture problems. Information already exists somewhere, but it fails to be accessible to people who need it when and where they are working in the field. In order to make site specific step by step instructions available on a job by job basis in a format that can be pulled up by a field worker on their phone prior to a visit or while on site is the way to go. This can be done by creating a structured knowledge layer that does not add a manual step for each job. It can be integrated with a CRM that only office staff will access.

How do I get clients to give me the detail I need at intake without making it feel like homework?

Don't build an intake form for clients to complete and forget. Frame the intake conversation as a walk-through rather than a form. Ask about their worst experience with a previous landscaping company and what would make a property manager's life easier. And then LemonLime asks them what would make a property manager's life easier. Clients will tell you everything you need to know about them if you just ask them the right question at the right time. Record the conversation as you go through it and put the notes in a shared online note-taking tool so you don’t have to refer back to the recording.

What's the right time to do a formal onboarding call with a new commercial client?

Before the first visit, not after. Typically within a week of issuing the contract. This allows time to convert the intake notes into standing instructions and to check out access details etc not covered in the proposal. A 30 day call after the first month of service is also very useful to find out how anything that had arisen had been dealt with.

How do I make sure site preferences don't get lost when an account manager leaves?

LemonLime recommends that preferences for features and tools be set at the property record level rather than at the contact record level or employee record level. Any information that is put into personal notes, in email drafts or just in someone’s memory tends to walk out the door with the employee in turnover. A lasting layer of site instructions, etc. can only be developed and updated after every significant client contact in a shared system tied back to the property address. LemonLime is a tool that helps commercial landscaping companies develop such a system using the tools that they currently use.

How long does it take to get a new commercial landscaping client fully onboarded?

Your 30-45 minute intake call should result in 30-45 minutes of written standing instructions for your crew to follow within 48 hours of the call. Full operational onboarding, meaning the crew lead on every scheduled visit has everything they need without calling the office, should be complete before the first service date. By that, I mean fully operational on every scheduled visit, where the crew lead has all of the information that they need to provide great service to the customer’s property without having to call the office for more information. The 30-day check-in wraps the process and updates anything the first month of service revealed.