Strategic marketing in the off season can significantly increase your sales in the upcoming busy season and reinvigorate your current customers. You can gain awareness for your pest control business to new prospects and show current and prospective customers you are an expert in the pest control space. Scrub & Maximize your Database Focus on building and cleansing your database in order to help convert more leads into customers in the upcoming season. Start by…
The Last Mile is a blessing and a curse for many delivery service providers. It continues to present massive opportunities for revenue, but delivering goods to end consumers is unavoidably complex and dynamic. With eCommerce orders continuing to grow at the rate of over 23% YoY, businesses will need to move in tandem with customers’ requests while evaluating their approach to deliveries at the same time. Read on as we break down the last-mile challenges…
Market dynamics evolve from a change in both supply and demand. As customer expectations change, innovation changes the way that businesses meet these expectations and vice versa. Whereas 20 years ago, customers may have ordered goods from a catalog and waited weeks for delivery, today that same order is placed online, and the product can arrive to the customer in as little as 30 minutes from some enterprising businesses. This shift has meant changes for…
Being busy with a constant stream of business is great, but a ‘slow season’ can also be beneficial for your pest control business. The key is to be proactive during this downtime to better prepare for the next busy season, which will arrive before you know it. Reflection The best way to start is by reflecting back on your current season. In doing so, you will uncover areas of your business to focus on in…
For any business, large or small, the goal is simple: grow revenue today without jeopardizing your ability to make money in the future. Easier said than done! Operating a field service business with too lean of resources will hamstring your ability to grow sales. On the other hand, overspend or carry unjustifiable overhead, and you’ll quickly erode your profit margin and eat away at your bottom line. So how do you strike a balance to…
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 40 percent of work injuries involved transportation incidents in 2016, the most out of any other major event. As a transportation company with numerous fleets out on the road daily, it’s important to understand how to empower drivers to practice better habits while at the wheel. By providing drivers with the tools and information they need in order to understand how to be safe on the road, companies…
The lawn and landscape market has grown almost 4.7% year-over-year since 2013, and so has the competition. With more and more competitors starting lawn care businesses and flooding both the residential and commercial lawn and landscape market, many providers are finding it harder to attract new customers. And while landscape service providers have capitalized on high construction volumes, more disposable income among households, and cheaper fuel, these trends are expected to fade over the next…
Capacity planning is the ability to adequately manage your resources to keep up with customer demand. Sounds pretty straightforward, so why do so many residential and commercial service businesses get it wrong? Well, for one, capacity planning is commonly mistaken as scheduling. Scheduling is the (often manual) process of assigning your workers to specific jobs. Capacity planning, on the other hand, focuses on optimizing worker abilities and utilizing your assets (your people) to increase output…
Milkman has been leading the charge in last mile deliveries since 2015. Their success is built around two cornerstones: putting customers first and making smart investments in technology. By leveraging automation tools to remove the element of surprise and human error – they can focus more on their customers’ needs, wants, and experience. They’ve essentially attacked Amazon’s Achilles heel by making it possible for businesses to add a human element to deliveries. With the help…
The labor market is notoriously competitive. So much so, that in some residential and commercial service industries, just pennies on the dollar are enough to entice employees to take a new opportunity outside their current company. The threat of losing top technicians or office staff forces companies to find alternative solutions or bodies to replace lost production. Not to mention the customer relationships you may have to repair. Here are the top three reasons why…
Millennials continue to be the largest generational group of home buyers, and the most active generation of buyers, for the fifth consecutive year, according to the National Association of Realtors® 2018 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends study. As millennials continue to become introduced to the rewards and trials of homeownership, they should also be sparking a change in the way pest control companies are looking at how they run their businesses. In order to…
Achieving true business growth means diversifying efforts to expand and maintain existing customer relationships. Capitalizing on cross and upsell opportunities can be powerful tools to add value for the customer and your cleaning business. Research shows that increasing customer retention by just 5 percent can increase your profits by 25-95 percent, with upselling and cross-selling responsible for about 10-30 percent of total business revenue, according to a Forrester analyst. It’s also easier and cheaper to…
Customers are the lifeblood of your company and your biggest asset. Let’s face it, it’s easier (and cheaper) to sell to existing customers than it is to acquire new ones. For many small businesses, ‘developing’ loyal customers means they have to do things, give away things, or persuade customers into being loyal. Believe it or not, customers routinely select the service provider who provides high-quality and dependable service. If you are consistently authentic, fair, honest,…
One of the biggest pain points we hear is the inability to get new customers in the door. You’re looking to generate more business – we get it. But you already have a captive audience who knows and trusts you, so use that to your advantage. Whether you offer two or twenty-two different kinds of pest control services, you shouldn’t stop at selling just one. If you’re performing a residential pest control service, they will…
Searching for the right Fleet Management software solution can seem like an overwhelming task. With so many options and factors to consider, how do you ensure you make the right decision for your company? Capterra, a software review site, recently compiled their suggestions of the most important questions to ask during your search. Curious how WorkWave Route Manager stands up to Capterra’s standards? Keep reading! 1. Is the software a good fit for my company?…
While it’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day of running your pest control business, it’s important to take a step back, see where you’re at and determine where you want to be. In order to grow your business, reduce costs and improve customer service, identifying challenges and having the right tools in place will help achieve your overall goals. This blog covers common challenges among pest control owners, including call-back rate standards, revenue per…
Operations managers and route planners understand the importance of route planning and route optimization software. It’s essential to have a powerful tool that can optimize routes in minutes and free up your time. Without software doing the heavy lifting for you, it’s nearly impossible to get ahead of your day let alone focus on strategy. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small, medium or enterprise business, you share the same challenges. Managing deliveries and customer’s expectations…
There’s one question that we hear fairly often, “Do I really need pest control software?” And trust us, we get it. You’ve been running your pest control business for years, sometimes decades with little to no software. You’re the expert! However, it’s extremely easy to fall into the trap of doing things the way they’ve always been done. As they say, complacency costs more than fearlessness. Demand for pest control services continues to grow each year and the…
Leverage is the ability to influence a system or environment, in a way that multiplies your efforts. Better said, it is investing the right amount of effort, through the proper channel, to yield greater returns for your business. For small businesses, there is no greater leverage than your people. But with so much riding on the line, delegating may seem like a scary first step. However, the best-run companies not only properly equip their employees…
Losing a customer is never easy. You never want that unexpected phone call or email, where a customer informs you that they no longer need your services. But as frustrating as it may be – it is unavoidable. It can also be a valuable learning tool that you can use to help improve your business. Here are 3 steps every business should follow when re-engaging lost customers: Listen before you act. Though your initial reaction…