3/20/18 – Matt Rohman
The Price, Quality, Service Triangle.
This triangle is used within businesses to guide strategy and decision making. Price, quality, and service are the three broad arenas where businesses compete for clients.
The punchline of the triangle is: no company can compete highly in all three categories – at least not for very long.
The goal for businesses is to compete highly in two of the categories and focus on the clients that value those two categories most. This doesn’t mean that the third category is ignored completely – just that the company chooses to not compete at the highest level in that category.
What do you, as the consumer, do with this information?
For the product or service that you are considering; determine which category is least important to you then find companies that focuses on the other two categories. This simple decision will eliminate 66% of companies that would normally fog your decision.
How does this information apply specifically to lawn care companies?
Price: This can either be looked at as a low overall cost or high value (low cost in relation to what you are getting). Get some quotes, compare prices, and what’s included with the price.
Quality: Determine quality by: checking out neighbor’s lawns who use the company, read consumer reviews, and investigate the guarantees offered by the company.
Service: This typically relates to a company’s flexibility on timing and/or willingness to customize treatments or programs. Call or email a company to ask about; dropping specific treatments, only coming on Mondays, or doing your front lawn only. These would be examples to determine how flexible and customizable they are.
For further reading, the University of Nebraska put out a much more detailed guide for choosing a lawn care company: https://turf.unl.edu/NebGuides/SelectingLawnCareCompany_g1617.pdf
Summary of steps
- Determine which category of the triangle is least important to you when it comes to lawn care (price, quality, or service)
- Scan various companies websites for keywords that would indicate how they position themselves in the market and narrow down your options to those that match your priorities.
- “Guarantee” would indicate quality
- “Options” or “Flexible” would indicate service
- “Free Quote” would indicate a competitive price.
- Read reviews and/or talk to friends or neighbors about these companies.
- Request quotes from the finalists and sign up with your favorite!
Get a free quote at ProLawnsMN.com to see our pricing advantage and learn about our quality guarantee!
These “if I didn’t work at” posts are intended to show the DIYer how to get professional results on their lawn. Stay tuned for more.
