Pest Control and Bug Exterminator Blog

Customer service is the cornerstone of any business. If your customers aren’t happy, then you don’t have any customers. Your employees should be trained on the best ways to resolve all different types of complaints or problems your customers could have. And, your employees need to know how important that customer resolution really is. In the past, one unresolved complaint could go unnoticed and not have a large effect. Now, one unresolved complaint can turn into an online rant that can reach all of your customers and potential customers.

Customers Require Resolution

When customers have problems with your company, their shopping experience, their purchase, etc., they want a resolution to it. In fact, they expect a resolution. No matter what, a customer wants to be satisfied with your company, and they will usually give you a chance to make it up to them if they aren’t satisfied right away. Without a resolution to their problem, customers will be unhappy with your company, and you could very well lose them as a customer for good. If you want to hang onto customers, you need to be able to resolve their problems.

Image via CrunchBase

Dissatisfied Customers Will Vent

It’s extremely important to resolve customers’ problems because dissatisfied customers will want to vent. When people are unhappy with the products or services they purchase, they usually don’t keep quiet about it, especially if they tried to get a resolution from the company itself and weren’t pleased with the response. Many dissatisfied customers will vent to a friend, family member, or coworker, and this alone is enough to make you lose another customer. Now, dissatisfied customers can go a step further; they can vent online, where they can share their experience with everyone and get your attention to remind you how dissatisfied they are.

Negative Reviews Matter – A Lot

It’s no secret that negative reviews can make a huge difference in the success of a company. If a restaurant has a few bad reviews on Yelp, they could go out of business, and that’s not an exaggeration. When you resolve your customers’ problems, you can catch negative reviews before they even start. At the very least, if a customer still wants to complain online, they will hopefully include the fact that your company did do something to resolve the issue. People don’t want to give their business to companies that don’t do everything they can in the way of customer service. Mistakes or issues are forgivable, as long as you address them properly.

Make sure all of your employees – even those that don’t typically interact with customers or address their complaints – know proper ways to resolve customers’ complaints. Hold regular training sessions, and be sure to monitor and assess the way your employees handle complaints. The best way to prevent negative reviews from appearing online is to make sure there is nothing negative anyone can say about the way you treat your customers or handle your business.

Joshua Reynolds is an expert reviews tracker and avid blogger.  He is currently teaching others about proper online reviews management and customer service.

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Guest Post Published By Thomas Ballantyne

The Sky’s the Limit (Photo credit: w4nd3rl0st (InspiredinDesMoines))

Being able to bring in business is great, but keeping a customer loyal is even better. It has been proven time and time again that it takes less effort and money to keep a current customer satisfied than it does to bring in new business. There should be no question that repeat business is absolutely essential for success.

Here are some best practices for generating repeat business:

Superior Customer Service

This first bit of advice may seem too obvious to mention, but it is crucial. You can’t just have good customer service; you need to have superior customer service. Your business has to stand out above every other competitor in the market place. Competition is fierce thanks to the internet, so you have to react immediately to questions and concerns, connect with customers on a person level, and make them appreciate the little extras you do to demonstrate how important they are to you.

Stay In Touch With Clients

Just because a project is complete, that doesn’t mean you should not remain in touch with the client. Start by checking in on them to see how their business is doing and then follow up a little while afterwards to see if they need anything. Be sincere and spend more time listening, than talking. It is not an active sales call, it is just checking in to ensure they are still satisfied with your product or services.

Little Extra Touches

I mentioned the importance of little special touches in the first point, but ensuring repeat business means taking this step further. The superior customer service needs to continue beyond the sale itself. It could be something as simple as thanking them for their business after every sale or acknowledging their birthday by sending them a special offer in honor of their special day.

Keep Them Informed 

Existing customers should be the first ones you contact when you need to market new products and services. They have already trusted in your services once and if it was done right the first time, they will be likely to buy a new product or service with less convincing. This also helps reinforce the practice of staying in touch with past customers.

Watch Your Competitors Closely

Don’t kid yourself. Your competition is working hard to steal your customers out from under you. It is important that you pay attention to the marketing efforts of your competition, as well as any deals or incentives they are offering your customers. Double check your prices and services against what else is available on the market, so your business stays competitive.

Keeping customers happy takes superior customer service, constant contact, little extra touches, as well as keeping them informed of new offers and products. Pay attention to what your competitors are doing to entice your customers to switch and stay ahead of the game. Repeat business is the easiest business to retain, but it won’t happen without effort on your part.

The article is posted by Gerwyn Wallto. You can find more articles on a Web Billing Software website.

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Thomas Ballantyne

The online reputation of your business is so important that you literally cannot afford to sit idly by while it develops on its own. Here are four ways that you can be proactive in managing your online reputation and help steer things in the right direction.

Image via CrunchBase

Actively Monitor Your Reputation

You should be constantly monitoring your reputation online, not waiting to hear about the buzz after the fact. Actively monitor your reputation by frequently (every few days or so) checking each of the review sites your business is located on, including Yelp, Google+ Local, and other niche websites. When you claim your listings by joining a site, you can usually opt to be notified by email when a new review or rating appears, so always take advantage of that feature.

Also, set up Google Alerts for your business, and Google will email you each time it indexes a new page with the search terms you specify. Set up several Alerts. You should use your business’s name, of course, but also use any variations of it, your name, your employees’ names, and other terms and names that are unique to your business.

Encourage Online Reviews

Positive online reviews are like gold for your business, but you can’t just sit back and hope that you’ve pleased your customers enough that they’ll get online and write reviews for you. You should be encouraging online reviews any chance you get. When you speak to customers in person, ask them to consider writing a review and include the name of a review site in your suggestion. When people make a purchase online, have an email automatically sent that includes a link to exactly where they can write a review. Remind people through your website, blog, and social networking pages that you encourage reviews, and you should get lots more.

Promote Your Reputation

You can also be proactive by helping people read about your business online. If you want to generate more positive feedback and more customers, take advantage of chances to encourage people to check out the positive reviews that others have already written about you. Include the links to read your reviews in emails. Create a separate page on your website that lists all of your reviews, and update it frequently. As long as your reputation online is generally positive, keep that momentum going by being proud and getting everyone else to see why your business rocks.

Respond to Reviews

Whenever you get a new review, you should consider responding to it. Customers like to know that their voices are being heard (or their reviews are being read), and you can show them that you’re listening by thanking people for their comments, whether they were good or bad. In the event of a bad review, try to turn it around by responding with an apology, and when possible, something that can help make up for a person’s poor experience, like a future discount or refund. Your responses will help offset the negativity as well as further encourage the positives.

Garrett Payne is an online review management professional with a special interest in review tracking. Garrett suggests those involved in review monitoring tips for handling their online reputation correctly.

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Thomas Ballantyne

The internet is a sea of information.  Some salty, some entertaining, some exciting, and some information is just useless.  The world of pest control has been around for some time now.  There are industry giants that have been around for close to 100 years now. The pests may evolve , but not much really changes on a daily bases. So I sometimes wonder “how can anyone add new and valuable content to the topic of pest control?” Sure there is a new love song everyday of the week. Yes, Facebook is revolutionizing the social scene.  But PEST CONTROL???

But, as with love songs, it’s the passion that keeps the flame burning.  And while pest control isn’t most people’s topic of choice, there are those that carry the torch because they love what they do.  This past week a fellow exterminator reminded me why pest control is a good business to be in. Hearts Pest Control out of San Diego, really does have heart.

Hearts Pest Control, San Diego Pest Control Service that Cares.

Written by Gerry Weitz and reproduced with his permission.

Published in PMP magazine
http://www.mypmp-digital.com/pmpdigital/201004#pg14

Take Back My Paycheck

It is hard to part with money, yet I enjoy personally handing out paychecks.  At my office, the employees usually take a second look at the envelope before opening to see the paycheck.  Occasionally, they’ll look at the envelope and say, “Take this back, you didn’t write a fortune cookie.”

Whether or not the paycheck is particularly good, the staff enjoys seeing genuine notes addressed from me to them personally:

“Outstanding teamwork!  Good start to a great career at Hearts!”

“Love those extra efforts at client retention!  Thanks so much.”

“Mistakes get made.  Don’t let it get you down.  We’ll get there together.”

Something special is happening when employees care first about a small, heartfelt message before their paychecks.  It not only inspires them.  It inspires me.  I’m not a fool to think the employees would be here if they didn’t get a decent paycheck.  Nevertheless, people will exit companies that don’t inspire them.  Appreciation is a powerful word.  Combining that with inspiration for a better future is that much more empowering.

Great companies continue to inspire staff even as they grow.  Writing a personal note to one random employee each week might start a workplace legend.  There is something wrong when employees say, “It’s all about the numbers.”  If that sounds like your company, beware!  One way to prove you are listening to staff is by responding with communications that show you care about their personal and family welfare and their careers at your company.

Communicate those little things that make your employees want to feel as happy to come back on Monday morning, as they do walking out on Friday with paycheck in hand.

-Gerry

www.heartspm.com

Need San Diego Pest Control? Call Gerry at Hearts Pest Control. He will work on luxury homes to downtown San Diego condos. What ever your pest control needs are in San Diego, call on Hearts.

Putting the Service back into Pest Control

I really enjoyed Gerry’s article and from what I have learned about Gerry I can tell that he runs a good operation. Service companies should understand service from the top down. Service should be a genuine action of your personal choice with the intent to help another. To be genuine, the giver will have no motives to question. An act of service is also not given out of obligation. It is about caring. While I am not an employee of Hearts, I believe Gerry cares for his employees.

-Thomas Ballantyne
“Yes, I am a pest control guy.”

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My name is Svea Owens and I work for the Phoenix AZ branch of Bulwark Exterminating. Over the past several months, we have been using our website as a way for our customers to share with others about the jobs our technicians do for them. The first few weeks of using this website, we had a couple of customers call in saying they couldn’t figure out how to leave reviews. As the calls came in the other girls in our office would transfer these people to me and I would get on the website and walk them through step by step on how to do it. One customer in particular was very appreciative of this. She called in wanting to leave a review for one of our technicians, Jason. She said he always does an outstanding job and she really wanted him to get the recognition he deserves. I got onto the website with her and walked her through it and by the end she was so thankful. She told me that she wasn’t very computer savvy and that I explained everything very well and made it very easy for her to follow. She was happy that she was finally able to give Jason the gratification she felt he deserved. I also let her know I would relay her comments of Jason’s performance to my service manager as well.

Svea

Working at Bulwark Exterminating has been the most full filling job that I have had. Hello, my name is Tarria and I have been with Bulwark for about three and half years. Working for the pest control branch in San Antonio, TX. One experience that I had this past summer is a customer who called in to get scheduled for a callback for interior ants. Of course with our summers we are very busy and it can be very difficult to find a time and day to schedule an appointment for a customer. After, searching the routes I was not able to find an appointment for at least two days out. The lady was very understanding when she had to wait for two days for an appointment, to have the interior service done. However, later that afternoon, I noticed that someone had rescheduled a service and I got the customer scheduled the very next day. The “Mrs” was very pleased with the customer service that she received and how quick we could get someone out to her home. She told me she was very happy with our service and that she has been a customer for over four years. It makes my day to know that we continue to do such wonderful work and have great customer service.

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

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

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.

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