How one LCO uses Spraye to maximize route density

Photo: Spraye

Jim Beveridge, owner of Yards Done Right in Westlake, Ohio, started using Spraye software to schedule his routes as a beta tester. A fellow lawn care operator (LCO) developed the software.

Beveridge runs a two-person crew with his wife, Judy. Yards Done Right is a primarily residential company that does lawn fertilization, weed control, organic topdressing and tree and shrub services.

Beveridge shares with LM how he uses Spraye, and the advantages route density offers his business.

“For a small- to medium-sized business, Spraye has an amazing array of features it offers at an affordable price,” he says. The base subscription costs $90 a month.

Route density is a critical part of Beveridge’s operation because it equates to saving time and fuel.

“It means a lot to us because I can fly through a dense route versus driving 20 minutes between houses. So, route density basically is everything to us,” he says. “That’s what we try to aim for when we do marketing.”

Beveridge says most LCOs’ spray rigs can hold only so much liquid, and using Spraye helps him maximize the amount of square feet he treats in a day without going over that threshold.

“When I pick the route out, (Spraye) automatically shows me how many square feet I picked for that day,” he says. “And if I have a few too many (square feet), I can put a couple (jobs) back in the cart and not do those till another day.”

Maximizing by city

Jim Beveridge

Beveridge lives in one of greater Cleveland’s western suburbs. He organizes his routes by suburb to maximize the time spent in one area.

“We can pick a group in Avon that has 23 houses that are basically a mile apart, but it’s a 20-minute drive to get out to the houses, but once you’re out there, you go bing, bang, boom and you’re done.”

Beveridge says he also likes that Spraye emails customers twice: once when he schedules the visit — about a week out — and then again 24 hours in advance so the client can clear the yard.

Adding and skipping routes

Spraye offers several options if a client needs to reschedule a service.

“If you pull up and Mrs. Smith said, ‘I’m having a party in 20 minutes with 40 kids coming over, you can’t do my lawn today’ … you could skip it, you could move it to a different day automatically or you can just put it back in the unassigned services queue,” Beveridge says.

“And then the software will then recalibrate and figure out the next day that it’s in the vicinity and would make sense route-wise.”

Adding clients is easy, he says. Once he adds a client with a specific spray program — six applications or so — the client goes into the Spraye system as an unassigned service organized by city.

“We tag all the cities where all our customers are, so we can say our next day is going to be in Rocky River (for example),” Beveridge says. “We look up all the customers in Rocky River we’re going to do and, ‘Oh, there’s Mrs. Smith. We had to cancel her yard last week; let’s do her yard this week.’”