Pest Control and Bug Exterminator Blog

A woman in a Phoenix neighborhood flagged me down one day while I was working.  She wanted to know about our company (how much we charge and what services we offer).  After talking with her for a couple of minutes I finally got out of her that she was unhappy with her current pest control company.  She said they are in and out in 5 minutes and do not listen to her when she asked them to do something.  I told her that we would offer her the best customer service and professionalism while also solving all her bug problems.  She agreed to give us a chance.

When I serviced her house I made sure that I understood all her needs.  I knew that she needed a company that showed her that we cared about her.  I spent little extra time inspecting her home for problem areas.  Her entire backyard is grass, so I knew that the moisture from the sprinklers probably attracts many bugs like cockroaches and crickets.  This is what I felt was where the problem was starting.  I made sure that I used our Bifen granules to treat her grass.  I told her to let us know how things went.  Every month since her initial service this past summer, she has been bug free and is very thankful for our help.

Jameson Hunter

Phoenix branch technician

Pest-Control-Stories Story C, Cockroaches, Crickets, Pheonix AZ, roaches, Switchover

A couple of months ago we had a customer call in to schedule an interior service. He let me know he had just left town, and was going to be gone for a while, but that he had noticed some bugs inside before he left. He said he felt comfortable letting the technician treat inside without him being home. He gave me the alarm code for his house, and the code to unlock the front door, and just asked that the technician relock and reset the alarm when he was finished. We chatted for a bit, and he let me know that he had some steaks in the refrigerator that he wasn’t able to cook before he left, and they would go bad before he was home again. He asked that the technician please take the steaks out of the fridge, and he can keep them if he wants. He let me know they are really good fat steaks, and he would really appreciate if we helped him out with this. When I asked the tech to get the steaks out of the fridge he just laughed, but said they did look good and he wanted them. I just thought this was one of the oddest requests for pest control.

Jamie
St. George, UT

Pest-Control-Stories Story 2, A, funny, St George UT, trust

It was my second year as a pest control technician and was beginning to realize how much I enjoyed my job.  As a pest control technicians we are trusted to serve our customers to the best of our ability, in a kind, courteous way and we have a lot of freedom in how we accomplish this.  We have all day to complete our services and are often given opportunity throughout the day to earn more money.  I enjoyed all of this, but one day I realized that killing bugs was easy, I was enjoying the time I had to interact with our customer.  I would find myself almost daily impressed with the unique and amazing people we serve.  I have met NFL quarterbacks, World War 2 Heros, City Mayor’s, and even an Aid to the President of the United States.  All this was great but one day I met a little boy that couldn’t have been more than 9 years old.  He was in his pajamas and I was working late and tired.  This boy asked me “Do you like your job?”  I thought for a moment as I screwed an outlet cover plate to the wall I had just treated.  Then I responded that “I do like my job.  I get to meet nice people, see beautiful homes and landscaping, and most of all I get to make your home a safer, better place to live.”  This little boy looked at me with a look that expressed to me he really only wanted a yes or no answer and walked away.  I was left with a new goal at every customers home.

Wayne Bryant

Las Vegas, NV

Pest-Control-Stories Story 5, C, customer service, Las Vegas NV, pest control story

During one hot summer in Austin, I was performing first time services for new Bulwark customers and training a new technician.  It was getting late in the week and the two of us had performed several first time services, so I told the trainee to get started on the outside and I would go inside, talk to the new customer, and get started performing the inside service.  I expected the trainee to come inside after doing the weephole screening and power spraying the perimeter, but after about half an hour, he had not yet come inside.  I explained to the new customer that I was going outside to check on my partner and that I would be back inside in just a few moments.  The hose was on the reel in the back of the truck, the weepholes were already meshed, but the trainee was nowhere to be found around the outside of the home.  I didn’t want to start yelling his name and cause any of the neighbors to question the professionalism of the technicians working for Bulwark, so I decided to finish the inside service, and think about where the trainee could have gone.  I completed the interior work and explained to the new customer, what I had done on the inside, what products were used and how they worked.  After thanking the customer and in the process of walking out the door, the customer said very calmly and nonchalantly, “make sure the dog doesn’t follow you out the gate, she has a habit of escaping” and the customer followed me out into the yard.  As we walked, I recognized the trainee, sweat dripping off of his face and petting a little dog in the yard.  The customer then told the trainee, “I’m surprised you two are getting along, she’s quite an escape artist, anytime someone comes into the yard, she gets out”, to which the trainee replied, “oh no ma’am we pay close attention when there a pets in the yard, we would never let anything happen to someone’s pet”.  The trainee and I left the home and hopped into the truck and asked him, “where’d you go, I was looking for you?”  To which he replied, “That little dog got out when I was reeling up the hose, so I tried to catch her.”  “I have been running all over the neighborhood for that last half hour.  I couldn’t pick her up and carry her the three blocks back here because I’m allergic.  So I caught up to her and fed her my sandwich to get her to come to me.  I took off my belt and made a leash and the two of us walked back to the house right before ya’ll came out.”  We laughed for a few minutes and I offered to buy him a Gatorade and something to eat.  As we pulled into the parking place at the convenience store, there was an unmistakable “LOST DOG” picture and poster in the store’s window from one of the previous escapes by his new friend.

Russel Shoffner

Branch Manager Austin

Pest-Control-Stories Story 2, Austin TX, B, Dog, exterminator story, Extra mile, funny, pest control & dogs, pest control stories

I’m Gabby, and have worked for Bulwark Exterminating for over three years now as a Customer Service Representative. One of my many duties entails calling and scheduling customers. There is this one particular customer that called in on September 25^th 2007. This customer has been a loyal customer of ours since 2007. She has requested to have a specific technician to do her regular service and that is Roger. He is known in our office because of all the great compliments we have received from various customers. Roger services a well known gated community in the Austin, TX area. One of the great things we hear from all his customers is that he bends over backwards for our customers. Which I agree he really does.  If I could estimate there is about 30 additional customers who request Roger as well. So those customers are known as “Roger Only” customer that’s how popular he is in our office. So on that day in September the customer who was scheduled to have Roger out there that morning and got a notice left on her gate that stated her mailbox was full! She called the office to inquire what that meant. I then informed her that when we called her to let her know about the scheduled service, her voicemail was full and therefore she didn’t know about the appointment and left her gate locked. She then requested not only to have Roger go back and perform the regular service but to also delete her messages on her voice mail because she didn’t know how to do that. I explained to her that I couldn’t schedule that because that is not Roger’s area of expertise and she would have to contact her phone service provider for that. She insisted on getting Roger back out there, so I did. She continues to be a “ Roger Only” customer and I wouldn’t be surprised if Roger did go back and perform her regular service and also deleted her messages for her because again Roger always bends over backwards for his customers.

Pest-Control-Stories Story 4, Austin TX, B, customer service, Extra mile, roger-excellent-exterminator

One time I went to do a service for interior earwigs.  As I was on my way, I called the customer (wife) to let them know I was on my way.  She said, “Yes, please come over we need a spray badly!” So, when I got there, the husband came to the door and said, “What are you doing here, I already canceled the account!”  So I said “I just spoke to your wife and she said to come over and do the service.”  So he said, with a grumpy old face, “Come on in then!”  So as I went in, and the wife began showing me where the earwigs were, and the husband kept running around following us and saying, “You know, I can take care of this myself!”,…. “And I can do a better job!” So as he kept complaining, the wife said, “Honey, What did I tell you!!” as she grabbed him by the ear and dragged him to his room.

What I heard from the other room was, “I will pay for the service.” She came out and apologized and thanked us for the service.  I thought to myself, HMMM, She just put her husband in time out for trying to refuse Bulwark’s services!

Tevita Fine
Las Vegas, NV

Pest-Control-Stories Story 4, D, earwigs, exterminator story, funny, internal, Las Vegas NV, pest control stories

I got a call from the office one late afternoon to go to this customer’s house where there was a spider on her ceiling.  She said she couldn’t leave the house until we got rid of the spider.  So I hurried up and got over there to take care of it for her. Well when I got there the door was open, so I announced myself and I heard her say “come in quick he’s getting away!” I entered quickly and she was pointing at the ceiling showing me where it was. She looked to be very frightened and upset about this spider. I looked at where she was pointing and saw what appeared to be a female wolf spider with about 200 babies on her back! She had every right to be scared.  If those babies were to leave their mom while they were in the house, the whole house would become infested. So I quickly ran out to my truck and grabbed a can of d foam and ran back inside. The spider had stopped moving and the babies were still intact. So I crept up on it until I was about three feet away ready my can, took close aim and sprayed. My plan had worked. They were covered in foam and unable to flee. So I quickly gathered them up with a paper towel that was in my other hand. Needless to say her problem was solved.

She said I was her Hero! …I was her hero! Feels good to be considered a hero.

Adam MacFarlane
Las Vegas

Pest-Control-Stories Story 5, C, Las Vegas NV, Spider, spiders

My name is Roger James and I’ve been a technician for Bulwark for four years now.  I am a team leader and service the community of Steiner Ranch which is in Austin, Texas.

It seems like everyone is cutting corners financially these days.  One of my favorite families from Steiner Ranch shared with me that the father of their household had to take a pay cut from his work.  They ended up having a family discussion about where they should cut corners.  It was either their gardener or me.  I’m happy to say that their final decision was to keep Bulwark.  Too bad for their gardener.

I always try to go that extra mile when it comes to customer service.  Many times I take in customer’s trash cans or spend a little time asking how they are doing.  It is very important to me that I take an extra five minutes at each customer’s house in order to develop rapport and trust.  With the number of customers that want my service exclusively, I would say that my skills are paying off.

Our staff for Bulwark in Austin meets twice every month and always encourages the topic of Customer Service.  It helps to hear other tech’s stories in order to pick up tips here and there.

Pest-Control-Stories Story Austin TX, B, exterminator story, pest control stories, value

We have had this particular customer for about 2 yrs and in the mean time she had a relative come and move in with her.  Her relative brought several boxes and along with them an infestation of German cockroaches.  But, since the tech never knew about these boxes we continued doing regular treatments until 2 months after the relative had moved in which was June.  At some point she needed to get some things out of one of the boxes and stirred the roaches to life. Since the boxes were stirred she was getting an influx of roaches into her home so she called us and we went out to do a roach treatment as a callback.  She called back 2 weeks later and she was then due for her regular service at this point so we treated for her regular service along with the interior for these same roaches.  This went on for 2 months and she now wanted a manager to go out to her house and get this situated. I told her that I would take care of this along with a tech to double team this problem.  Little did I know how bad this problem was. Although they did not make it upstairs their problem was still severe, but we did an intensive treatment and set up a follow up the very next Friday.  This time I took a different tech to show them how bad the situation was.  When we arrived the problem was still there but did see several dead roaches, so went at it another way with a full Nygaurd interior treatment.  Nygaurd is a product that we use that is labeled for roaches.  This is something that we have not tried in our office till this year so we set up another follow up and came back the following week and several more dead roaches were found. So at this point we proceeded to treat under her dishwasher and her stove to extend the barrier and set another follow up.  The last follow up she did not show so I baited the outside and left a note for her to call me.  When she called her statement to me was since she had not seen anymore roaches she did not think that she needed to be there.  We still went one more time to follow up and had not even seen any more dead roaches.  We still treat this customer to this day. In our last conversation she told me that she blames it on her relatives who no longer live with her but brought the roaches, and that she is for ever grateful that we are her pest control company.

Ben Montes
Austin Manager

Pest-Control-Stories Story Austin TX, C, Cockroaches, Extra mile, roach control, roaches

I was lucky enough one day to receive this phone call from a customer complaining about rats and mice.  She wasn’t sure if they were rats or mice, but nevertheless, it was quite comical. She wanted to know all about our service and how we treated for them. I told her the technician would put out glueboards and mouse/rat traps. She seemed very upset, I asked her what was wrong, she said she didn’t want to kill the rats or mice, she just wanted us to move them to a different location. I couldn’t help but laugh, however, I laughed to myself.  I spoke briefly with a manager to see if there was anyway to catch them without hurting them, but the answer was no, which I already knew, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, I got back on the phone with her and told her we don’t offer that kind of service.

I told her not to look at the glueboards or look in the traps, but to call us and we would send a technician out there to check them for her. She seemed okay with that and we sent a technician out to check out her rat/mouse problem, which she definitely had. She has not called to complain since that phone call… I was glad to help in anyway I could.  Hopefully her problem is that of the past.

Jill Booker

Las Vegas

Pest-Control-Stories Story 4, C, customer service, exterminator story, Las Vegas NV, mice, mouse, pest control stories, rat