Lawn Treatment Companies?

[poo at Paul's]

We have been using one of these relatively sucessfully for the last three years, iniitally only for our front lawn that gets lots of sun and can go brown easily, but last year on our pretty large back garden too. Last year we spent over £600 on treatments, as the rear was done also and we had some expensive one of treatments, at least one of which was pretyt much a disaster, (scaryfying cost £200 near and let moss in as was done so late in mid Nov 09).

Anyway, the guy we used was a decent chap, with a franchise, and he felt bad about the scaryfying not working and said no worries he will do wahtever moss treatments we need this year FOC on the back, to get it back in shape.
So before xmas he did a compo mos treatment on the back garden, said he'd be back in Feb. Came back did another moss treatment on the back. BUt then we receive a bill for it, along wiht one for the regualr front lawn treatment, (that we were expecting). Before I have time to even call him to remind him of the FOC moss treatments for the back, we get a letter from the Franchise owner, telling me our guy has left and he will be taking over the "round" himself. Three people in our street all use our guy, we all get the letter.
Before we have time to take in what the letter even says really, the same evening as the letter lands on the mat, the owner of the franchise calls and says he is doing treatments tomorrow and will we be in. My wife asks him to call later when I am in, and at 8pm he calls in middle of our tea, ans phone gets it and he doesnt leave a message but 5 mins after cal I call him back.

The guy sounds a bit odd tbh, and does not know what treatemtns we have done, so I explain it is regualr treatments on the front (feed weed moss etc) and that we had some special work on th abck last year but it did not go so well. He is interested in what went wrong, so I explain, and then ay well yes you can come to do th front tomorrow, but as we had a bill for the supposedly compo moss treatemtn last week, I'd rather be around when he comes over to do the rear, so I can discuss action costs etc. I ask him if he is in the area tomorrow regardless, (as I was not goingto be about) he says "correct" (nob!) so I agree to have the front treatment done, and he will call again in a week or so to arrange to see the back. This is three weeks ago....he never came to do anything!
So I ahve called him and left messages and he has not responded once. This evening I call and get his ""message sevice" and the woman does not have a clue, cannot help, cannot tell me if and when I may get a call back and is pretty rude to boot!
I have tried to contact the old franchisee but he is not answering hsi phone at home, story is he moved away so that may be explained.

So what to do? I like a nice lawn and they were good to begin with, but last two years have both been noticeably the nicest greenest in the street, and I'd like them to keep up to muster!!
But I am also the sort who needs to "get on" with people who come and do work here, and if I think someone is an arse, I'd rather not use them. Decent people, however, I am very fair with and never quibble about money or payment etc. I paid the Moss treatemtn invoice even though I shouldn't have had to a it was meant to be a compo, but as the guy is a decent guy and now left the business, I paid it. However, the rear lawn is in bad shape and if our guy had carried on, I'd have expected him to do another scaryfying FOC to remove it.

But the customer service offered by this franchise owner seems very very poor indeed. Three weeks on, I still dont know if I have a "lawn guy" and if so, when he may be coming next! ! !

Wont name and shame but it wasnt green thumb!

Edited by poo at Paul's on Wednesday 31st March 21:04