Tech tracking

Glenn Rieker and his wife , Cheryl, have been in the green industry for 40 years, and their niche is maintaining large properties for wealthy clients. Many of the properties they care for at Grafton, Wisconsin-based MKEGreenworks are vacation homes on Lake Michigan.

MKE pulls in around $250,000 a year from just seven high-end clients. The only employees are Glenn and Cheryl. Seventy percent of the revenue is maintenance, the rest comes from construction. Since the beginning, the Reikers have relied on technology to help them stay lean, efficient and deliver outstanding customer service.

“People are so busy looking for the next job instead of kissing the rear end of the job they do have.” Glenn Rieker, managing partner, MKEGreenworks

“I can’t service 100 clients,” Glenn says. “I can service 10 $100,000 clients really well.”

In the early 2000s, the Riekers were working on a lot of second homes, and sometimes wouldn’t see clients for a year or two. So the couple started building websites to help them follow the project from start to finish. Their adoption of technology continued. Three key tools help them handle higher-level aspects of their work.

1. Smartsheet sends emails to clients, reminders to vendors and easily allows shifts in the schedule in case of a rain delay.
2. Time Master records all time and materials charged for each job, so they can report to clients exactly what they spent.
3. Evernote manages spreadsheets, project photos and diagrams of underground utilities for quick reference on site. Invoices imported into Evernote become searchable. Clients also often ask the Riekers to help manage their vacation homes, and the app tracks items like wetsuit inventories.

Their ability to quickly find information and respond to requests (even helping a customer pull a jet ski out of Lake Michigan late at night) helps the Riekers build deep relationships and customers appreciate their high level of service.

“People are so busy looking for the next job instead of kissing the rear end of the job they do have,” Glenn says. “Nobody focuses on Disney-level service anymore.” L&L

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