In my business it’s about 60% education, 30% application and 10% YOU when it comes to an absolutely 100% bug free home. Now let’s break that equation down just a bit and see what we get.
Education is the key?
To be honest I’m not sure even 1/2 of my customers retain anything I say. It’s easy to have full attention when swarmer termites are pouring out of a wall or roaches are dropping from the ceiling but somewhere down the line things change. It could be a different bug invading that should bring new expectations or the original problem that is slow to be resolved but for whatever reason customers expected results aren’t realized. Did the situation change or did the clients bench marks move? Or was it no matter what I said the customer had a preconceived notion and only heard some key words that popped up and aligned with their mind which was already made up? Either way you slice it education is the most valuable tool in pest control but is the least heeded.
Applying the chemical = done deal?
Now we’re treating and ALL YOUR PROBLEMS WILL SOON BE GONE–Oh Boy!. Uh, not so fast. Although I put a full 27 years experience, literally BILLIONS of dollars in research (not my money but the manufacturers) and all that energy into doing the job in the correct way, you might still have some pests even after a successful job. What? How could you call a job successful if I’ve still got bugs running around? How soon we forget, did the words “instant or immediate” ever cross my lips? I think I talked about “process, cycles and the magic of time.” Weren’t you listening when I went through the most dominate 1/2 of my service?
Look, it only takes me about 1 hour on average to do what we term a ‘clean out’ that is a top to bottom ‘no hiding spot left behind’ treatment which I would compare to anyone else’s in the country for effectiveness etc. but even with that you may still have remnant bugs to deal with. Does this mean my service didn’t work? That my chemicals are weak? Did I take advantage of you or is it something more?
Enter the 10% and the “YOU” factor
The last segment of my equation may be the smallest number but at times it represents 100% of the problem. I’m all for education, I’m in
favor of IPM (Integrated Pest Management) but when my forehead is bruised and bleeding from knocking it up against a brick wall because nothing has sunken in to a customers head and I’m getting berated or having my staff spoken to in a condescending manner I will draw the line. So don’t be surprised if nice little ol’ Jerry with his A.C.E. patch and the most informative web site on the net say’s, “Please find another vendor.” Fortunately this doesn’t happen very often in fact it’s very rare for me and I am probably more like the vast majority of pest control pros out there who take this abuse all the while we can see over your shoulder the mess of the kitchen, the pets who are not treated with proper flea care, full rays of light streaming through an unsealed door or window or maybe some empty cans of Raid obviously used for your pharaoh ants that are now worse than ever. I could go on and list the many factors but I won’t. I could sugar coat this article a bit as well before I present it for the world to read but I won’t do that either. Instead I’ll just present this as bluntly to you as has been put to me on more occasions than I care to count.
I understand you have a pest problem and that you’re spending your hard earned dollars to have that remedied. I also know that you have expectations set in your mind and if pests are still hanging around that this can be upsetting. But whose expectations are these? Yours even after you gave full and attentive credence to what your chosen professional has said? Or yours after only 1/2 heartily considering the information presented? Either way, my point which you may not want to hear is that this chosen expectation is yours and yours alone. The expected results were something your professional explained and are probably 99.9% accurate whether your happy with them or not. We can see the severity of the problems and all the contributing factors, it’s not hard to figure out you’re gonna have more critters if certain aspects out of our control aren’t addressed. In the end with all things considered if you still have bugs and aren’t happy with your results, maybe it’s a you problem.
