Managing the extra work that comes up between maintenance visits

Most landscape maintenance companies are very good at the scheduled work. Mowing, edging, pruning, seasonal color, and fall cleanups follow a rhythm that crews know by heart. Where things get messy is everything that happens between those visits: the customer who calls about a dead shrub by the front door, the crew that notices an irrigation leak while they're mowing, the storm that drops branches across a parking lot, and the property manager who wants the hedges along the fence trimmed before a weekend event.

These extra requests are often where a customer decides whether you're a good contractor. They're also where money quietly leaks out of the business, either because the work never happens or because it happens without anyone agreeing to pay for it. The difference between companies that handle extra work well and those that don't usually isn't effort. It's having a simple, consistent way to handle every request the same way.

Every request needs a home

Extra requests arrive from everywhere. A phone call to the office, a text to the crew lead, a comment made in passing while the crew is on site, an email from a property manager, or a note scribbled on a work ticket. The problem isn't the variety of channels. It's that each request ends up living wherever it arrived, which usually means in one person's memory or one person's phone.

The first and most important rule is that every request gets written down in one shared place, no matter how it came in. A request that exists only as a text to your crew lead isn't really in your system. If that crew lead is out sick, or simply forgets, it's gone. Once it's written down where everyone can see it, it can be reviewed, approved, scheduled, and finished.

Capturing it well doesn't take long. Note who asked and how to reach them, the property and exactly where on it (“front entry beds, left of the door” rather than “out front”), what they're asking for in their own words, and whether it's urgent. A photo, if anyone can take one, saves a lot of explanation later. It also helps to note what kind of work it is, whether irrigation, general maintenance, drainage, or an enhancement, so it reaches the right person.

Decide whether it's in scope before anyone picks up a tool

This is the step most often skipped, and skipping it causes the two most common frustrations in maintenance work. Either a crew does extra work for free because nobody stopped to ask whether it was covered, or a customer gets a bill they didn't expect for something they assumed was included.

Every contract is different, so there's no universal answer to what's in scope. Routine shaping during scheduled visits is usually included, while a major hedge renovation usually isn't. Reporting a plant that's struggling is part of good maintenance, but replacing it is usually extra. Noticing an irrigation problem is something any good crew does; repairing it often isn't covered by a mowing contract. The point isn't to get rigid. It's to make the call explicitly, for each request, rather than letting it be decided by default in the field.

Get a clear yes before the work starts

For anything that counts as extra work, get the customer's approval before you schedule it, and make that approval easy to give. A short message explaining what you'll do, a photo of the problem, and any price or estimate your process requires is usually enough. Customers approve faster when they can see the issue and understand exactly what they're agreeing to.

While you wait, keep the request clearly marked as waiting on approval. That way, anyone in the office can see that the job isn't forgotten, it's waiting on the customer, and it's easy to follow up on anything that's been sitting too long. When the approval comes, record it on the request itself, whether it arrived by email, text, or a conversation on site. Months later, when the invoice is questioned, you'll be glad it's there.

It's also worth deciding who on your team can approve and close work. Many companies let crew leads mark jobs as done but have a supervisor or the office close them after checking the photos and updating the customer. Whatever you choose, keeping it consistent avoids jobs being closed before anyone has confirmed the work was actually finished.

What it looks like when it works

Here's a simple, fictional example. On Monday morning, a property manager calls to say a delivery truck has flattened three shrubs by the front entry of an office building. The office logs the request for that property, with her description. That afternoon, the crew lead is on site for the regular visit, adds two photos, and notes the size and type of shrub. The office confirms it's outside the maintenance contract and sends the manager a short approval request with the photos and a price.

She approves by email on Tuesday. The approval is recorded on the request, and the job is assigned to the enhancement crew. On Thursday they replace and mulch the shrubs, add after photos, and mark the work done. That afternoon the office checks the photos, sends the manager a quick note with an after photo, and closes the request. Nothing in that sequence is complicated. What makes it work is that every step happened in the same place, so anyone could have answered “where are we with the shrubs at the office building?” at any point.

Planning for the busy seasons

Extra requests don't arrive evenly through the year. Spring start-up, fall cleanups, and storms all create bursts that can overwhelm an informal process. After a storm, the companies that cope best log damage reports per property as they arrive, flag genuine hazards like fallen limbs over walkways as urgent, and then work through the rest in order. Before spring, it's worth looking back at last year's extra requests property by property. The same customers tend to ask for the same kinds of work, and knowing that in advance makes scheduling much easier.

Close the loop with the customer

The last step is the one that turns a routine job into a reason for the customer to renew. When the work is done, tell them, and show them. A short message like “The three boxwoods by the front entry have been replaced and mulched; photos attached” takes a minute to send and leaves the customer with a clear picture of what they paid for. If your crews aren't yet in the habit of taking good photos, our field guide to before-and-after photos covers the basics.

Finally, it helps to have someone glance at open extra-work requests once a week. Which ones haven't been reviewed? Which approvals have been waiting more than a few days? Which jobs are finished but the customer hasn't heard? A few minutes of attention each week keeps the whole system honest.

Where software fits

All of this can run on paper or in spreadsheets, but it gets harder as properties and crews multiply. In Groundlark, each extra request becomes its own work order with a request type, such as irrigation, landscape maintenance, drainage, or enhancements and extra services, and moves through New, In Progress, Awaiting Approval, and Closed. Work can be assigned to a person or a crew, crews add before-and-after photos and notes from their phones, internal notes stay private while notes meant for the customer can be marked visible, and you decide which roles can approve and close work.

To see how that fits a maintenance business, take a look at our landscape maintenance software page, or book a walkthrough and bring along a recent extra request. We'll follow it from the first call to the finished job.