There’s a venerable Chinese saying that the longest journey begins with a single step.

For this article, we talked with end-users who pretty much agree that successful implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) software comes after many steps accompanied by diligence, time and sometimes frustration. But – and it’s a very large but – all say the journey is well worth it.

Clay Cantley, left, and Gavin Nurick, both with Miller’s Tree Service. Operations struggled with incorporating their CRM at first, but were encouraged to stick with it and are happy they did. Inset photo courtesy of Miller’s Tree Service.

From those with experience implementing a CRM at different-sized tree care companies – an owner/operator to companies with hundreds of employees – they all agree with the premise and conclusion of this article: “It ain’t easy, but stick with it.”

Simply stated, CRM platforms help the modernized tree care company organize every element of customer contact, from initial quote query through scheduling, follow-up, billing, account management and account history. In return, gone are the “paper days” and duplicated efforts.

But the journey can be filled with reluctance and hesitation to adopt new ways of doing things, a low level of technical capabilities and the seeming complexities of so many steps along the way. We heard one anecdote of a company that acknowledged the need for high-tech customer-account software and made the purchase, but then left the project “on the shelf” for six months, doing nothing. That company eventually plowed through, however, to discover what they determined to be arguably one of the best friends of modern tree care management.

Katie Watkins, left, office manager, and Peggy Brock, office administrator, both with Miller’s Tree Service. Staff fully adopted their CRM system after about five months. “Everyone has bought in now,” says Clay Culpepper. Photo courtesy of Miller’s Tree Service.

Miller’s Tree Service
Clay Culpepper, a partner with Miller’s Tree Service – a 14-year TCIA member company based in Tallahassee, Florida – attended TCIA’s Winter Management Conference in February 2024, where he found a sympathetic ear for some issues he was having with his CRM platform.

He recounts, “I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ron Keith, the owner of Arbor Masters Tree Service (an accredited, 26-year TCIA member company headquartered in Shawnee, Kansas), and his CEO, Bernie Zarda. We discussed our businesses and learned so much about how different our operations and customers were. We also discussed how my company had recently begun using SingleOps tree care software and was struggling with it. He (Ron Keith) said to be patient, as they had had their struggles early on as well, but they now have it mastered.”

Culpepper explains how he and a partner flew to Kansas City to meet with the Arbor Masters team and the CEO of the software company, who discussed ways to delve deeper into implementing TCIA best practices and maximizing the potential of the CRM.

Culpepper was among the first to describe stumbling blocks on the road to CRM success. “I am a partner and also lead sales producer. I struggled at first. The system we had before was simple and easy,” he recalls. “Now I have better sales reports and can track employee time much better, to better dial in the cost of each job.”

He says one of the main challenges in the business is tracking direct labor costs. Now, not only have they seen improvement in that area, but Culpepper uses the data in many other ways, such as “to motivate the staff, to see how well we do on each job, to better target hourly rates for our crews and to improve conversion rates from bid to finished job. We have a far better closing percentage,” he maintains.

The missteps en route to successful CRM implementation included initial setup, linking data to QuickBooks and file customization, such as setting up calendars by crew, recounts Culpepper. He says it took about five months of use before they moved fully over to the CRM. “Everyone has bought in now,” Culpepper stresses.

One of Culpepper’s partners at Miller’s Tree Service, Tim Walters, CTSP and operations manager, picks up the story, recalling that when the company was smaller, everything was shared relatively easily on a Google Calendar for time management and scheduling. But, with the company’s growth, there wasn’t enough “paper space” for the day’s work, so CRM was the strategic solution, he recalls.

One of the biggest initial hangups, according to Walters, was between sales and crew leaders addressing all the detailed data input on work orders. But now, especially since much of the data input is unnecessary due to repeat orders (customer information remains captured), “a lot of the information is already there to be pulled up, to see how every job was done, including notes. And, believe it or not, notes about jobs and customers are used all the time.” With personal notes, Walters observes, “The customer feels like they are our one-and-only customer. CRM is always about the database, all at the touch of a button. It’s made my life a lot easier.”

In offering TCIA members advice to get over the hump, he maintains, “I think it takes someone like me for the technical advance. If I wasn’t pushing, we would have slipped back. I still push every day,” Walters says.

“Just keep going,” he advises. “Look at what it will do in the long run.” Walters says the crews can see the benefit now. But, he says, “If I had stopped and said, ‘Let’s go back,’ I would have gotten zero pushback. No one likes change,” he observes.

“I think CRM increased our numbers 8-10% just due to routing jobs more efficiently, because we no longer have to spend an hour traveling unnecessarily here and there,” Walters surmises. Walters estimates that last year the company (saved) a million dollars by not wasting time, adding, “If we save only one hour a day each, with two crews, we save $300,000 a year.”

Darren Diaz, CEO of David’s Tree Service, checks out sales statistics for his staff on the left hand screen, while seeing where to jobs are located on the right. Photo courtesy of Darren Diaz.

David’s Tree Service
Darren Diaz, CTSP, is a second-generation CEO of David’s Tree Service – a 25-year TCIA member company based in Huntington Beach, California – aptly named after his dad, the company founder. Established in 1981, David’s Tree Service offers pruning, removal, stump grinding, planting and maintenance for residential, commercial and homeowners-association customers, as well as emergency services for public works and municipal clients. Diaz learned the business starting at ground level, literally, as a ground worker, then later as an estimator and now as CEO leading several crews.

“We adopted a CRM (ArborNote), and when we did, we had no idea what we were getting into. We knew what we wanted, but not how challenging it would be to create and implement the program and then get the team on board.” He reports that the start-to-proficiency process took about a year.

Diaz confesses to being quite tech savvy, which helped push through the process, but he has some hard-won advice for other TCIA members starting out on the CRM road. “Hire a consultant,” he says adamantly. “With a consultant, the process will be much faster and will skip over a lot of mistakes we made along the way.

“The first months are super challenging for everyone – owners, managers and employees. Management went to the trouble of establishing its own standing operational procedures, even a PowerPoint presentation for the teams, but there was little initial movement,” Diaz says. “We were persistent, and today we work well with support sales, office operations – every department.

“With the CRM, we knew we needed to better manage customer relationships,” Diaz states, “and realized as we got more and more into it how many other tools were available to the sales team.”

In terms of chronology, “We adopted the system in 2021 and attempted to launch it three or four months later,” he reports, adding that, after working closely with ArborNote staff, the company has significantly increased closing rates. The reason for that, he says, is “the sales team is more aware of every deal they put out and can give it more attention than they could before, now handling seven to 10 jobs a day, up to 50 a week.”

From a statistics standpoint, Diaz reports a 15% closing-rate increase. He adds that the recent ArborNote and HubSpot collaboration has resulted in further streamlining of the process. Initially, the complementary software capabilities of HubSpot and ArborNote required separate manual inputs, but now they are synched together, Diaz says.

Now, with two years of proficient CRM experience, Diaz says it has become a day-to-day essential. His bottom line is to be patient and use it.

If your CRM manager is a creative person, “You’ll be using CRM in many different and custom ways,” Diaz says as a final observation. “If not, use it as is, and you’ll be OK.”

Cochrane Tree Care
So, if you’re saying to yourself, “I’m a small operator. What about me?” the answer is, the model still works.

Kurt Stenberg is owner of Cochrane Tree Care in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada. He also is a partner in Atmos Tree, a first-year TCIA member company also based in Cochrane. Atmos Tree is a group of arborists united in what Stenberg terms a “regenerative alliance aimed at planting more trees than we remove.” And he is creator and host of the Arborist Blueprint podcast.

As a sole operator of Cochrane Tree Care, Stenberg swears by CRM software. He uses a Jobber CRM designed for small businesses serving home and commercial clients. He has run the business for six years and has used Jobber for five. “I got in early on,” Stenberg says.

Like Diaz, he’s very comfortable with technology, but, “there is always some intimidation any time there is any change in life,” he observes. For him, the newness was in the database aspect, adding that Jobber has an easy initial learning curve, but getting to all the bells and whistles takes more effort.

“Jobber has a hand-holding service if you want to take them up on it. It’s a great resource, but you pretty much can figure it out,” Stenberg reassures.

“I just figured it out myself, solo. It’s a minor short-term pain for a long-term gain. This will save you a lot of time,” he says, adding especially if you’re a larger company still on spreadsheets and job notes.

As a single operator, Stenberg recognizes the professional image CRM projects to the customer, not to mention the speed of digital invoicing and payment. “Do it for your customer if not for yourself,” he advises, otherwise, “you risk losing jobs and money.”

Conclusion
In the end, TCIA found that, though the CRM software solutions vary, the end result is a better run, more professional and more profitable tree care business. But, like a major take-down, you’ve got to pay attention and stick with it.

Rick Howland is a veteran newspaper reporter and editor, former national magazine owner and editor and retired international consultant in public relations, advertising, merchandising and training. He lives in the upper Hudson River Valley of New York.