Pest Control and Bug Exterminator Blog

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

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

I recieved a call at the office and the customer was needing a callback for silverfish.  So I told them I would come right out and take care of the problem.  When I got to there, a man was at the door and said to go ahead and start on the outside before I do the  inside. So, I said, “Okay, no problem, I’ll take care of that for you.”   As I was spraying and I got to the backyard a nude lady was laying out in the sun.  So I thought to myself, I think the guy at the door forgot to inform his wife that I was going to be spraying. I didn’t know what to do, I was shocked, so I went back to the front door and knocked on the door again and told the man that when we service homes we need to keep animals and humans inside and he just told me, “Oh, just go ahead and spray!!”  So, I put my sunglasses on and was trying to spray around her without looking at her and trying to hurry and get out of there. I did my thing, and the lady didn’t seem to even mind or notice, some stranger from a foreign country was there!!  Wow only in Vegas!! What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas!!

Tevita Fine
Las Vegas, NV

One day I was servicing a home while training a guy that had been sitting in the truck while I did all the spraying and all the services. He always was having an excuse to be on the phone. I was really getting frustrated cause I believe that he was just being lazy. I knocked on the customer’s door and there wasn’t an answer. I checked the gate, it wasn’t locked, so I went back to the truck and asked if the trainee wanted to spray the house. He was still on the phone so I just started to spray the house. When I got to the backyard I made it to the far side when this big dog came from under the dog house, filthy dirty, and growling viciously. The dog came towards me, and I felt like I had to run. I jumped the neighbor’s wall and came to the front yard. I saw that my trainee was off the phone and I just quickly asked him to finish up the back while I made a phone call to the office. He went towards the back yard where I was sure that he was going to have to jump the wall like myself. To my surprise he finished the service and rolled up the hose while I faked being on the phone with the office. I guess if I would have not run the dog would not have chased me. But at the least it got this tech to start to spray houses and learned the lesson that not all dogs of this sort are really vicious.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Richard Wickoff

Mgr. Las Vegas

One day I was just finishing service at a home and was rolling up my hose when a neighbor walked up to the service vehicle.  So I stopped and went around to the other side of the truck to speak with her. She wanted service later on that day. I discussed the price and what we do exactly and she wrote down her address and information on the service agreement. She even paid and signed it if I would come back that same day at 4 PM.  I agreed and told her that I would see her at 4 and bounced my happy self back to the truck.  I hopped in and put her service agreement in my clipboard.  I had totally forgotten that I didn’t finish rolling up my hose.  So I left, and soon I heard a humming noise and it was the sound of my hose coming off the reel very fast.  I looked back threw my side view mirror as I turned the corner and saw the gun slide under a car tire and stopped immediately.  The hose had stretched to pencil thinness and the gun was ruined.  I had to go all the way back to the office to get a new gun and hose. So an easy day that I was running ahead ended at around 8 PM because of my laps of concentration. Lessons learned!

Mgr. Las Vegas

Richard Wickoff