Pest Control and Bug Exterminator Blog

One morning I was going out to start my pest control route in Austin Texas, and my 1st service had requested to be called 30 min prior to going. I called her at 7:30 and told her I was Randy with Bulwark Exterminating and this was her 30 min courtesy call before I come to her home at 8 o’clock to do her pest control. She apologized and told me she was running late to take her daughter to school but she really needed to have a inside treatment done for scorpions  but she wouldn’t be home till after 8:30 or so. I told her no problem, and that I could go there and treat her home on the outside and would wait for her to get back home.
When I arrived at the home I knocked on the door just to make sure no one was there, then started to spray the house. While spraying the home I was checking for wasp nests and spider webs to see if any needed to be taken down. After spraying the home I checked and baited the two rat boxes at the back of the home and then walked the yard and baited the fire ant mounds. She arrived home at 8:35 and then I went inside and did an inside scorpion treatment. I left home at 9am. Took me an hour but the customer was very happy with her service.

A few years back when I was still teching I went to a customer home in Georgetown, Texas to do their regular service, as I was walking around the back of the home I noticed what looked like blood along the pavement I as moved further around I came to find out their dog was bleeding. I immediately did all I could to reach the customer finally getting a hold of them thanks to a neighbor of theirs. The Mrs. was able to get home in time to get the dog to the vet and save the dog.  When I came back for the next service she explained to me that the dog had been bitten by a rattle snake and thanked me for trying everything to get in touch with here and not just leaving, during that entire service I was scared that the snake was going to bite me, so it took me 40 minutes to do a 20 minute service because I was so cautious. Then when I went to get the ticket signed she commented that it took me longer than normal so I explained why that was.  Then she told me they had already killed the snake as they found it in the dog house. Doing what I did that day is a direct action taken by me due to the influence of my managers and the owners of the company.  To be honest, since I have been at bulwark exterminating I feel that I have grown in ways I never imagined due to the way the company treats its employees and its customers.

Robert Morales Jr

Austin TX

In July of 2004 I came to this company with an understanding that Bulwark was a customer service company first and pest control company second.  Little did I know they actually meant it; on my second day of on the job training here in Austin Texas I was paired up with Silvestre Loera.  He made the day great, but he stressed how it was important to start your day on time and get to your first house promptly.  He also showed me after that the first service you could go get breakfast tacos, which I thought funny due to he was stressing right before to be on time. As the day went on he proceeded to provide great customer service to every customer we serviced.  I was thinking wow, great company, I made a great choice coming to work here.  Then we came to a customers house where Silvestre gave new meaning to customer service.  I was standing at the door beside Silvestre when we rang the door bell.  What happened next seemed very strange to me, but not at all to Silvestre. A man answered the door wearing nothing but a hand towel around his waist, hairy chest and all showing to Silvestre and myself. I was ready to walk off but Silvestre talked to the man as if nothing were wrong and proceeded to listen to the mans every need.  He even offered to go inside and treat if needed, which the man did require. I was taken by surprise that the customer service mentality at this company was that deep, because to be honest that was my 7^th overall day at bulwark and I was ready to quit. Overall the experience is one I won’t forget and says a lot about what is instilled in the employees at Bulwark by the owners, managers, and technicians.

Robert Morales Jr
Austin Texas

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.

My wife and I used to live in California before we made the decision to move out to Austin, Texas.  I never realized how beneficial my experience in California would be for my job until I started working for Bulwark.  I have ended up meeting so many customers who also used to live in California.  This has helped me gain their trust and loyalty because I feel that we can identify with the many differences between both states.

One family comes to mind this past summer.  I was actually spraying a regular customer’s lawn when a man quickly approached me.  He said that he saw my Bulwark truck and hoped I could help him out.  He went on to explain that his family had just moved here from California a couple days ago and they had large fire ant mounds all over their front and back yard.  I ended up servicing the inside and outside of their home that very day paying special attention to the ant mounds.  He decided to sign up for a year’s contract with Bulwark before I left that day.  It was nice for him to hear that I could relate to what they were going through.  You see, the fire ants in California are nothing compared to the fire ants here in Texas. The first time you get stung by a Texas fire ant- You too will want to call Bulwark for HELP!!!  He also asked me if it were true that scorpions actually come into houses here in Texas.  After I let him know that this is possible, I went on to further explain that Bulwark treats their customer’s houses in order to help prevent scorpions from coming in.

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

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.

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.

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

My name is Roger James and I’ve been with Bulwark for four years now.  I am a Team Leader and primarily service homes up in the community of Steiner Ranch which is in Austin, TX.

One of my best stories this past summer was a customer who has been pregnant through this past year.  Every month when she saw me, she would smile and tell me how many more months until her little one was due to arrive.

I always try to think of how I can go that extra mile for my customers, so I asked her if she would like me to come and retreat the inside of her house two weeks before the baby was due.  She said yes right away.  It was nice to give her that extra reassurance that the inside and outside of her house would be bug free when she brought her baby home.

In August I saw her new baby girl.  She thanked me again and again for bringing her family “peace of mind” each and every month, especially with the baby.

That confirmed to me that I’m going that extra mile to bring ”Peace of Mind” to my customers.  That’s what Bulwark is all about.

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.

My wife also teaches in Steiner Ranch and she was surprised at the beginning of the school year by a request from one of her student’s moms.  She asked my wife, “Isn’t your husband that Bulwark guy who works in this area?”  She told my wife that many of the moms in Steiner have told her that Mrs. James’ husband is the BEST exterminating tech and she had to “switch over” from XYZ Exterminating to Bulwark.  So my wife ended up giving her one of my cards.

I received a call from this mom the following week. She let me know that as soon as her contract was over with ABC in a few months that her family would be switching over to Bulwark.

Sometimes the BEST form of advertising is “word of mouth.”  It’s nice to know that I have built up a solid reputation in Steiner.  I have sold many contracts by referrals, but this story is one of my favorites because it validates the quality of work I do.  At the beginning of this year, Bulwark allowed me to go to Texas A & M to further my training.  They also offer classes every month to keep us updated.  This story proves to me that my skills are paying off and I do my job thoroughly.