Pests, insects, bugs, vermin, infestation, creepy crawlies… no matter what name you use for them, there’s one thing that’s true when they get into homes: people want them gone.
Power Pest Control is an incredibly important field service in the modern world. Through a combination of strategy, technique, and carefully formulated poison, your professionals maintain a quality of life that ensures health, food safety, and building integrity. You fight the bugs and rodents that would bite infants, destroy pantry storage, eat away at houses, and bring disease to clean residential and business environments. Of course, when it comes to customer service before and during a work order, it’s important to remember that while your clients are grateful, they may also be dealing with one of the worst, scariest, or most upsetting situations of their life.
Today, we’re here to share the key customer service tips for pest control professionals. From answering the phone and scheduling services to the follow-up email, pest control work orders require expedience, delicacy, and an understanding that customers may be more excited about your service than usual.
Respond to Urgency With Expedience
When a customer calls, texts, emails, or otherwise contacts you about scheduling an extermination, you can expect a certain amount of fear-tinged urgency. The best way to reassure worried or upset customers is to respond to their level of urgency with a matching level of expedience. If they’re in a hurry to see an exterminator at their door, make it clear that you’re equally eager to have someone out there helping them. Indeed, the way you manage work order scheduling is key to both emergency and more relaxed extermination services.
Through tone of voice, wording, and quick scheduling, you can show your customers that you care about their health, safety, and home integrity as much as they do. This will help them understand that their vermin worries are being handled by someone who takes their concerns and their very legitimate fear seriously and will act with due haste to save them from the invading hordes.
Of course, not every customer calls in a panic. Some are so cool about bugs that they could have been pest control professionals in another life. These customers will most appreciate an equally calm and professional approach. Do your best to match your customer’s tone.
Talking to Your Clients About the Service
Everyone responds to the human fear of insects differently, so how you go about soothing customers and helping them during your visit will vary from customer to customer. For those who are truly freaked out and clearly need a break from the whole situation, invite them to spend some time on their porch with an iced drink and a book while you take care of the problem for them. However, some will feel better by seeing the extermination in action.
These clients are more likely to enjoy walking with you through the house and might appreciate you explaining the extermination process to them as you go, giving them a better understanding of how and why they’ll be safe when you’re finished. Then there are those who will want to give you a tour of every location they saw a creepy-crawly, providing a combination of useful information and detailed personal storytelling. Simply listening and conversing while you work should be enough to please these customers with your service.
Dealing With a Client’s Children and Pets
Children and family pets are always a special topic when dealing with poisons and traps. In households where one or both are in residence, certain safety steps should be taken. If the kids or animals are present when you arrive, advise your client to keep them far away from where you’ll be working so that their potentially weaker and closer-to-floor-level immune systems aren’t in any danger.
Even if they’re not present, it’s important to explain to your client where the poison and/or traps are going and what safety procedures are necessary to keep their smaller household members safe. Let them know how long the poisoned areas will be dangerous for toddlers, how to keep the pets away from traps, and so on. Make sure to enumerate every single poisoned area, even unlikely places like the attic or foundation, just in case.
Do a Final Check
Never assume a work order is over until you’ve done a final check. There may be multiple types of an infestation occurring at once, separate areas of the house experiencing separate infestations, or possibly even an outbuilding in the yard that will serve as a staging point for future vermin invasions. Check with the owner and offer to do a full property inspection to ensure that you’ve dealt with any existing problems. If you find an additional infestation or outdoor risk, your client will be grateful that you prevented future problems. If you don’t find anything, you can assure your client that their vermin worries are over. At least until next season when a new wave of creepy crawlies may try to move in.
Taking your client with you on this inspection is a great way to show your dedication to their safety and satisfaction. It is also an opportunity to show them potential trouble spots to look out for like corners that will attract spiders, cracks in their walls that may need to be repaired. You can also advise a regular perimeter maintenance service to help them prevent any further infestations when the rains or winter chill drive insects to seek shelter in human homes.
