Greenpal is a new app that allows homeowners to schedule lawn service.
The grass never seems to stop growing in Florida.
Year round, homeowners have to find the time to mow, edge and blow once or even twice a week.
When it gets to be too much and you just need a little help, there's an app for that.
The app is called Greenpal and while it's not the only one, it's just the newest to hit the Tampa Bay area market.
Greenpal claims to be better than its competitors for several reasons: they cover the full process from the bid to the scheduling to the payment. The app also encourages customers to rate the service.
The app is easy enough to use. Just download it, type in your home address, when you want your lawn done, then they send bids to your email. Users get up to five bids before selecting which one you want.
Then pay through the app and rate the vendor when the job is done.
The rating is the key to the success of the app, said Greenpal co-founder Gene Caballero.
"When homeowners pick who they want to work with, they can see ratings, they can see reviews and see price," Caballero said. "They can also see a reliability rating that will give that homeowner a pulse of how many times that vendor shows up on the day he's supposed to.
"So you're able to pick and choose who you want to work with based on that criteria."
Insignia Landscape was one of the first vendors to sign up with Greenpal. They find quite a few benefits working with the service.
"The process for us is great. It's another networking tool for us to create revenue," said Insignia owner Mike Williams. "They take a small percentage of the fee, but with that being said we don't have to worry about collections, we don't have to worry about sending out payment.
"All the back-end office work is taken out of our hands. They're doing everything and we benefit from it."
All the lawn care pros are vetted by Greenpal to make sure they have commercial equipment and do good work.
Of course, Greenpal is not alone. There are other "on demand" landscape services like Plows and Mows, Lawnstarter and Lawn Mowing Online, but they are all a little different in how they work.
In Florida, where the grass always seems to be greener, there's plenty of work to go around.
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