Bus 335 Case Study - Hazels Lawn Service

Bus 335 Case Study – Hazel

Question 1.  Hazel’s customers will judge the quality of her service based on numerous factors, they include:

• Timeliness.  Does Hazel perform her service in a timely manner consistent with the customer’s demands? Is she on time and does she perform the work in accordance with established deadlines? Does she respond to customer inquiries promptly?
• Reliability. Does she do what she says she will do when she says she will do it? Can she be counted on to do a thorough and complete job?
• Quality of the work. Does she do a good job mowing the lawn? Does she trim the edges? Does she pick up the trash before mowing? Does she haul away the waste? Is she careful not to cut the flowers or break the lawn ornaments?
• Employee Appearance. Do here employees dress and act in a professional manner? It may be manual labor, but having employees wearing the right safety equipment and shirts with a company logo can say a lot about the business and how serious they take the job.
• Prices for Service. Are her prices competitive? If they are higher, does she offer specialized service to justify the expense?

All these factors are listed in the textbook as “dimensions of service quality” (Stevenson, 2012) and need to be considered by Hazel when evaluating how customers will judge the quality of her work.  

Question 2a.  Hazel will have to forecast things like demand for her service, equipment and material usage rates, equipment and material replacement rates/times, employee availability, and income/expenditure rates.

Question 2b. Inventory will likely consist of equipment such as mowers, edgers, shovels, and rakes; and material like gas, oil, planting soil, and fertilizer. One inventory decision she will have to make periodically is how much fertilizer to keep on hand verse buying it as she needs it.

Question 2c. Hazel will need to schedule everything from employee work hours to what jobs to do and in what order. Even on a job she will have to schedule what tasks must be accomplished, in what order, and by when. Weather is one factor that may cause her to reschedule jobs. Employee absence is another.

Question 2d. Quality assurance will play a big role in the success of Hazel’s business. She must ensure the jobs are done in a high-quality manner and to the customer’s satisfaction. If not, then she risk losing customers and will have difficulty in obtaining new ones.

Question 3a. Working for herself, Hazel has the advantage of setting her own work schedule, accepting the jobs she wants to do, not having to share the fruits of her labor, and the satisfaction that comes with being your own boss. However, working for someone else can be less stressful because you don’t have to worry about making all the decision and there is usually a support structure you can tap into for problems related the Human Relations. When you own your own business, you have are responsible for its success or failure and that can be more than some people can handle.

Question 3b.  If Hazel expands her business she may lose some of the personal touch associated with a small service-related business. She will also have to trade some of the flexibility she currently has for a greater work load and less opportunity to pick and choose the jobs she takes on.

Question 3c. If she decides to launch a web-site, she will likely to add another employee or contract a service to run it, this will cost her money she may not have.

Question 4. A town ordinance prohibiting curbside pick-up of grass clippings with have a big impact on Hazel’s operation and her expenses. She has limited options, one would be to purchase a truck and haul the clippings to the local dump site on her own. While expensive, this option provides Hazel the advantage of not having to pay someone to haul the clippings and not having to find a place to store the clippings until pick-up. Its main disadvantages are the expense up front for purchasing a truck and having to pay to dump the clippings. Another option would be to hire a contractor to haul and dump the clippings. This saves having to purchase more equipment and dump fees, but it forces Hazel to find storage for the clippings and now she is at the mercy of another company to perform a job that impacts hers.