I have the following understanding of what makes pest control services efficient:

Advertising

Nowadays when more people are searching for businesses on their computers, laptops, androids, i-phones, tablets and other devices it becomes more important that the services advertised for are found easily on-line as a must.

• Paid advertising such as ‘’pay per click’’, premium listings in on-line business directories and price comparison websites generate additional costs that are ultimately passed by businesses on to their customers in higher prices for their services. Czechmate Pest Control can be found on the 1st page on Google and of most other search engines frequented by people in Scotland. It has been done on low costs by me in a natural way without the need for hiring expensive web design or SEO professionals. We minimize PPC advertising campaigns and do not engage in any expensive premium listings or price comparison sites.

Customer service

The vast majority of people looking for pest control services want it done by professionals, they do not want to wait for their service for ages and they would prefer a low cost. Before a potential customer makes his or her booking they want to know the price, what else would be involved and how and when the service would be delivered to them.

• I do not think potential customers for pest control wish to spend hours by sending loads of email enquiries and spending hours and money on the phone to just get a quote. Therefore I have placed fixed prices for the most common pest removal services we do straight on our website where they can be accessed without a need for further action within seconds. Apart from ‘’on-page’’ on-line quotes our customers can benefit from many information about the actual services made available there too. Phone lines are open from 8 am to 10 pm daily.

Emergency pest control

Pests come uninvited or they can sometime be found quite unexpectedly. In such cases people may look to get rid of them as soon as possible by using emergency pest control.

• Our customers can contact us for expert advice given free of charge, make enquiries and to book a pest control service by email or over the phone 7 days a week from 8 am to 10 pm every day. A service may also be booked to be delivered outside these hours at no extra charge. Importantly when Czechmate Pest Control advertises emergency pest control 7 days a week we really mean it; e.g. when a customer requests a service to get rid of mice in his or her house on a Saturday evening we do not only handle their enquiry at the time but our technician also attends the job and deals with it there and then on the same Saturday evening. Czechmate Pest Control does not charge different rates for emergency call outs outside usual business hours.

Pest control services

Most potential customers would be looking in a pest control service to be delivered safe, efficiently and in a time and cost effective manner by a professional pest controller.

• The technician who will carry out the physical work on the customers’ premises is BPCA qualified and certified and with a lot of practical experience. The most efficient as well as cost effective method of treatment is sought while safety is not compromised.

Payment

Customers want to know how much the service is going to cost them beforehand. They do not like such nasty surprises as being billed additional costs that were not counted in the original quote.

• Our domestic customers benefit from fixed prices that are stated on our business website and can also be requested by email or over the phone. Our commercial customers benefit from free initial inspections and estimates. A price for any paid service and applicable payment terms must be agreed prior to the service may commence. We never change the quotes already given to customer for a particular job unless agreed with them otherwise and neither we add any additional costs to the job when it is completed, regardless of whether any additional or unexpected costs have been incurred.

Aftercare

Pest control customers do not generally want to be kept in dark about what and how it has been done to get rid of the pest problem on their premises. They want to know what to do next and importantly what they can do themselves to prevent it from happening again in the future.

• We advise our customers about pest removal treatments all the way and throughout as they progress. On completion of any work customer is issued with a service report that is communicated to them by the technician verbally and handed over printed on paper (This is not a typo!) there and then. Advice and further recommendations are parts included in the report.

I have implemented all of the above into Czechmate Pest Control business policy.

By Martin Kroupa