Embark Tree Services

unknown

Very knowledgeable in climbing and tree removal. Expert in tree care. Impressed with his skill. Friendly guy who cares about trees and taking care of the customer. Very open and honest. Was willing to work with me to keep cost down and within my budget.

A contract was agreed upon in 8/2012 that was initiated by a Groupon (for 3 hrs. of tree work) but included additional work, none of which was ever completed. Work was first scheduled for October 2012, then the next month, which came and went without communication from Embark all winter. The coupon value expired in January 2013, but owner, Mr. Harden stated in writing that it would be honored beyond that date due to the weather and scheduling glitches early on that kept bumping my work further back. After many calls and emails, I finally got a response in the Spring and work was scheduled for April (no show, no contact), then May at which time Embark did make an appearance and I was told that the work could no longer be done under the original contract d/t further die back in one tree since the job was bid. Mr. Harden went on to say that his Groupon customers regularly expect more work from him then can be accomplished in 3 hours, that he felt taken advantage of, and he had lost a lot of money with the Groupon. Although failing to understand why this information was shared or applicable, I agreed to a new contract so that Embark would be fairly compensated for the additional work brought on by not completing the work as scheduled last fall. In my haste to run back to work, I did not get a copy of the new contract and it was not left or sent to me at my request and no work was scheduled. In July, I sent an impatient email to Mr. Harden with a compromise: provide me only the 3 hours of work as indicated in the Groupon voucher, stop at 3 hrs and we’ll call it good. He responded back with further laments over being screwed by demanding, unsatisfied Groupon customers, his financial losses, and safety issues associated with the change in work scope, but agreed to provide the 3 hours per the Groupon and no more. Repeated attempts to schedule the work over the next month were futile. When he replied to schedule the 2nd week in August, he demanded indemnity should tree failure or property damage occur in the future. I agreed to hold him harmless. The excuse the 2nd week in August was jury duty and I have not heard from him since despite repeated attempts. It is clear that Embark does not intend to honor the agreed upon contract or any equitable variation thereof.

I purchased a $99.00 Groupon with a $225.00 value in 11/2012 and job was not completed until April 2013.. Poor communications throughout the months to get them to actually complete the job was agonizing. Kept postponing my job and gave poor reasons. The work that was completed was done well.

We, too, obtained a Groupon coupon. We waited to contact assuming that they would have an influx of business. Got a reasonably quick estimate in Nov. 2012; but didn't detect an email follow-up for the bid for final OK. Waited until this spring to see what was going on. After several unreturned phone messages, we finally contacted Groupon to see if the vendor was even still in business. That finally prompted a response with a re-send of this email which we quickly responded our and quot;OKand quot; for the work. We were originally scheduled for work in late April. We've had three and quot;no showand quot; schedules with a 2-3 week delay with each re-schedule. It rains on our last scheduled day and we get bumped 3 more weeks. We just want the work done. We suspect that he already had turned in our coupon for his money as he asked for it and my wife gave him the number. We re-contacted Groupon with our suspicions which they didn't confirm nor deny; they just cancelled the coupon and gave us back our $99 in and quot;Groupon bucksand quot; which I'm not happy with, either. I agree that Andrew seemed very knowledgeable; however, the bane of new business owners is a painful lack of customer understanding as it goes towards service perception. He and his service is probably good at what they're supposed to do; however, providing the customer service necessary to sustain a business will likely doom him. The nasty combination of his bad (non-existant) service with a Groupon situation and a and quot;not perfect weather windowand quot; like the other reviewers experienced provided for this toxic review. And we still have a dead tree to remove and have to start, again, to find a better experience.

During a recent storm, half of a tree fell on our detached garage. I contacted the owner of the tree service through his website, and after a couple of emails we set up a time for an estimate. When he arrived, I showed him the area, and stated that I wanted to keep the brush and wood (less time/work for him). He quoted me a price of $250 (plus tax) to get the partial tree off the garage and cut it up into manageable pieces. Also, because it was storm damage, he placed our job on higher priority. I was impressed with his knowledge. He knew about the several different kinds of trees on our property and gave advice about how to deal with them in the future (much appreciated). He did the work within 1 to 2 weeks of the estimate, while we were gone. He also sent an email afterwards explaining how the job went and that everything went well. It was a very pleasant experience. The owner knows what he's doing, quotes a fair price, and did exactly what he promised. I would recommend him to friends and family, and I look forward to hiring him again.

I had purchased a Groupon for Embark and contacted the owner, Andrew, for an estimate in August. While the company is relatively new, he was knowledgeable and assured me he would be doing the trimming and would do so by climbing the tree, rather than trying to bring in a bucket. Without prompting, he said he could not recommend doing any major work on the ash tree, given the likelihood of its eventual demise due to the emerald ash borer. He suggested cleaning up dead branches and improving clearance for the garage roof, which was what I had planned to request, but I was impressed with his honesty. He scheduled the work for December, after a hard frost, to avoid any danger of oak wilt disease. Despite some equipment difficulties and the illness of a crew member on the day of the work, he and a co-worker arrived shortly after 8 a.m. and worked until 4:30 p.m. or so. Most of the work involved a very large pin oak that needed extensive work to elevate the lowest branches, clean out the interior and remove deadwood and broken limbs. Even though the wood chipper was out of service, they did an excellent job of cleaning up after themselves and hauling all the refuse away in a dump truck. They were careful with my property and with my neighbors' properties. The trees look great.

It took a few week to set up an appointment for an estimate - which I anticipated, because I knew the Groupon likely caused an influx of business for Embark. I met with Andrew and was extremely impressed with his knowledge, expertise, and seemingly genuine enthusiasm for his line of work. Originally I thought I would have a few trees trimmed. After speaking with Andrew and learning that was probably not necessary at this time, he suggested a growth regulator for my beautiful very old oak tree which is very close to my home. I loved this idea. I also asked about trimming a very small maple that was also close to my house. Andrew recommended removing the tree as it would continue the same growth pattern after a trim. This made perfect sense and we plan to have this done in the future. The reason I rated the company a B was the follow-up after the appointment. I notified Embark I wanted to do the growth regulator and was told the product would be ordered and I would be called about a time for its application. Weeks went by. I had to make serveral phone calls to get this application on the schedule. While I understand product application may depend on the weather, a total of approximately 6-8 weeks passed between the time I asked for the service and the time it was completed. Again, I expect this has a lot to do with the increased business the Groupon brought in, and also the beautiful mild weather we had this fall in Des Moines. If this is the case, it's a good thing as the Groupon did what it was intended to do - bring in more business. However, each customer needs to still feel like their project is important, no matter how big or small. My advice is if time allows and if need be, a future customer may need to follow up a few times. I will say Andrew was very apologetic at the time that had passed and explained that they were indeed very busy. I would hire him again as I think his knowledge, expertise, and enthusiasm for his craft outweigh the wait. I'd give this company a B+ if this review allowed me to.