Monday, June 11, 2007
Is bigger any better when choosing an exterminator?
Are the major league players like Terminix or Orkin any better than your neighborhood pest control company? Not really in many cases. A one man operation often times will provide a better service because he values your business more than the bigger company. You can build a better relationship with a one man operation because you will see the same technician each time which might not be the case with a large corporate company. Large corporations might have a better response time but they might also be more expensive and require a more rigid contract basis. Many small companies won't require you to sign a contract and are a little less expensive. Bigger isn't always better in many cases and I think the pest control industry is a perfect example of this. You are paying extra for the big guy's fleet of trucks, their gas, their overhead, their advertising, their chemical cost. The small guy usually gets business by word of mouth, has one truck on the road and services a smaller and tighter territory. As always you should check with your local Better Business Bureau and ask your neighbors who they use when choosing a pest control company, but I'd take a close look at your neighborhood guy the next time you are in the market.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
LOL, if you've seen what I've seen working in the industry for many many years, you wouldn't be on the fence on this one. Larger=worse.
Good luck with a complaint or suit, they're lawyers will drag things out for YEARS, YEARS, YEARS.
The basic tactic used my alot of large organizations. Large companies are 80% sales and 20% service. I know, I was a top producer for many years.
Maybe I'm advocating mid-size companies because my company, Hearts Pest Management (www.heartspm.com) is a mid-size company, but anyway, hear goes my pitch.
In pest control generally, it is extremely hard to find good, reliable people, devoted and knowledgable. Even if you do find them, a common experience is that the worker's family is experiencing dire problems. This is the state of the technical work force today.
When it comes to large companies, they tend to put people in trucks to fill the required slots and just don't consider the quality of the technician as much as the number of stops serviced that month. Quality goes down the drain and the customer suffers.
With small companies, such as the one man outfit, the owner has no replacement when sick or on vacation. They are overworked and they are often not knowledgeable enough of standards. They often cut corners. They don't understand business and it shows in the way they treat workers. Again, quality suffers and so does the customer.
Mid-size companies avoid much of the above problems, with tighter control of their labor force and retained knowledge of accounts so that their is still a personal touch.
Post a Comment