When we first signed up with AIR, we were one of the customers that were thinking we had finally found a company that could deliver what we had hoped for.
We were hoping to establish a relationship with a firm that'll take care of our lawn for years to come, with environmentally and human friendly means.
Yes, it costs a bit more than the offerings from other companies. And yes it was established from the get go that this would take longer as it takes a fundamentally different approach to building up the lawn from the ground up. But we thought it'd all be worth it.
However, as alluded to by other reviewers at this point, we've had a series of disappointing experience throughout the year, which included:
1. Sporadic scheduling of mowing (it was never just a bit behind in schedule, but a week, or two, or three weeks behind each mowing, until we had waited each time and then called and texted)
2. A sense that until we had texted Zack we'd not be getting a mowing at the scheduled week
3. A series of misfortunes with machine status and other resource issues, on the side of Zack, as communicated by him, that led to a complete inability for us to know whether we'd get a lawn even a week or two beyond the scheduled week
4. A lack of a sense that the misfortunes need to be addressed at the business level to shield the money paying customers from the business and operational decisions made (as much as we have repeatedly expressed sympathy and given him the benefit of the doubt, for more than a few times). Or, to put this differently, I keep getting the feeling that we the customers were shouldering the risks and costs from the business decisions made by the company that impacted the program we were promised to received, before and after the contract had signed.
5. For a lawn care model that's predicated on the precise timing of different treatments throughout the year, it's quite troubling to see that the mowing was never (save for once?) done on time, by a wide margin. The compost tea treatment was paid for in the program, but never done.
6. The handling of the refund, despite having provided an elaborate amount of details on a spreadsheet, was first pushed from Dec 2018 to Jan 2019. And so far we have followed up in January by texting Zack directly 3 times (once on the 7th, then on the 10th, then on the 21st) and we have not gotten a single response at this point.
I think the business has potential, and I really admire the approach they've set out to execute. But regardless of the business reasons, the service has barely been able to execute on even the most routine part of the operation: lawn mowing. And that's an issue when the service is charging a premium on not just mowing but also the other services that we have, in hindsight unfortunately, signed up for.
We're now back on the market, searching for a replacement for 2019 and beyond, that hopefully could deliver on their promises. Or, at least, more of their promises, than what we've unfortunately seen with A.I.R.
(Also, if others have had success getting refund of unfulfilled part of the program, please let us know. Thanks in advance! I hope that no one else had to go through the same pain we've had by hiring AIR, moving forward.)
Update - apparently we're not alone on this. Here's a BBB review detailing a similar experience, where AIR just ended up not refunding money they owed to the customer: https://www.bbb.org/us/md/rockville/profile/landscape-contractors/air-0241-236006495/complaining read more