[Customer Service] Avoiding Communication Breakdowns

Smile. Speak clearly. Make eye contact. Smile.

They’re simple things to read in a magazine, but often harder for pest management professionals to do in the field, said Mark “Shep” Sheperdigian, vice president of technical services for Rose Pest Solutions, Troy, Mich.

“And while that may seem oversimplified, it means that you should spend easily as much time working on your client relationships as you do your technical skills,” Sheperdigian said. “I can teach anyone to kill bugs, but getting them to keep clients is hard.”

COMMUNICATE CLEARLY. Sheperdigian said technical knowledge still remains the foundation of a successful technician, but strong communication skills — the ability to interact with clients — now are necessary to keep accounts on the books.

“You do have to have a certain practiced ability to impart information without saying wrong things,” he said. Don’t use “forbidden language,” he said. For example, don’t say, “This place is a pigsty.” Instead, try something like, “We need to improve the level of sanitation.”

“You said the same thing, but now you’ve made it sound a little more clinical,” he said. “Everybody has a level of sanitation; you just need to improve yours a little. If you make them feel bad, they won’t want to talk to you. The more I can put people at ease, the easier it’s going to be for me to solve their problem.”

LEARN TO COMPROMISE. A common complaint Sheperdigian hears from pest management professionals is that their jobs are made more difficult because the “client is not cooperating.”

“It’s common for people in our industry to hang their hat on client cooperation. It would be nice if they were cleaner, it would be nice if they were more cooperative. But if we work a little harder, we can get the job done,” he said. “The point is, people aren’t always as cooperative as they should be. The larger point is, a lot of what we do, we do in spite of our clients.”

Many businesses have tight margins, and often are willing, but not financially able, to implement a pest professionals’ recommendations, he said.

“It’s unreasonable to ask a client to put forth so much effort that they become unprofitable,” Sheperdigian said. “Maybe in reality, we do the best we can.”

WALK AWAY. But strong customer service isn’t just about being friendly. Often, especially in large commercial accounts, clients will want less pest control than they need. And, because of what Sheperdigian calls “bracing competition,” many pest professionals will oblige.

“You can hurt your reputation by agreeing to do less than the client needs,” he said: Their name and yours can get plastered across the headlines, but not the fact that they wanted less control. “That never comes out in the news. It always just appears that you just didn’t know what you were doing.”

To avoid that, he said, pest professionals might have to tell lucrative clients that they just can’t provide that level of service. “It might be that you need to walk away,” he said.

The author is assistant editor of PCT magazine.

Let’s Play a Game

One of the best ways to teach technicians how to handle customer questions is to play out those situations beforehand, in a controlled environment, said Mark Sheperdigian, vice president of technical services for Rose Pest Solutions, Troy, Mich.

Have technicians come up with a list of questions they have difficulty answering, or just don’t like to answer. Gather everyone together to discuss those questions and suggest answers. Then, practice.

Sheperdigian said Rose employees are trained on how to talk with customers during new employee training, and at other meetings during the year.

“It’s one thing to know what to say, it’s another practicing how to say it,” he said. “Say it. Say it again. Say it like you mean it. Say it like you’re telling your best friend over a beer somewhere.”