13 June 2014 Better Customer Communication for Better Business

“One of the great opportunities I see for pest management professionals in Australia is better customer communication” say’s Mr David Priddy, CEO of Sundew Solutions.

“During my time as a consultant to the industry I had the opportunity to ‘profile’ pest technicians from across Australia and found that 75% were systematic, task orientated, and focused.  More importantly, they exhibit ‘introverted’ behavioural patterns.”

“Basically a large percentage of technicians are excellent on the tools, but when it comes to customer communication or handle objections, they fall apart”, explained David.

A good example is a pest control company I worked with in Sydney who had a commercial customer ring up and complain about an $850 bill they received.  I asked the technician what was on the invoice he had written up.  He said simply “pest service”.  I then asked him what he’d done at that particular job.  He then went on to explain that he’d rebaited rodent stations, sprayed inside/outside, applied baits for cockroaches, removed a dead rodent from the storage room, dusted in roof, treated around some drains, and changed a tube in a fly station.

I asked the technical to rewrite the invoice and detail what he had done and send the new invoice back over to the client.  Within 20 minutes he client had rung back and said “your invoice is too cheap, I had no idea you were here that long”.

In this example, if the technician had turned up and let the owner know the work he planned to carry out, and then on his way out explained the details of what he had done then presented the invoice with corresponding details, there would have been no issues.

Another example where communication and understanding your products are the two new innovative ant control products – ANTagonistPRO liquid concentrate and SAS PRO granular insecticide.  Both products utilise non-repellent technology which allows the active to be carried back to the nest for total colony elimination.

“Typically when a pest management professional is called out to an ant job the client is expecting to have their ants eradicated.  Both ANTagonistPRO and SAS PRO do this very quickly in the first 96 hours.  In this time you can expect to see ant nests in the immediately treated area controlled”, continued David.

However, ants from neighbouring properties will come foraging into the now ‘ant-free’ zone looking for food and other resources.  The products ANTagonistPRO and SAS PRO are designed to work in a more controlled manner after this first 96 hours to allow active to be taken back to these remote nests in order to eliminate them.

“So when using this new technology it is important to explain to your customers how these smart products work and what they can expect to see.  Do this from the start and you’ll have a client for life”, concluded David.