[Focus On Training] Working The Phones, Part Two

Editor’s note: Does the person answering the phone at your pest control company know how to discuss German cockroaches with customers (and potential customers)? Since these pests often create a panicked reaction from a homeowner, it’s important that your company’s representatives can thoroughly and expertly explain the basics to the caller.

This is the second in a series of articles aimed at training your company’s first line of customer service — the people who answer your phones, commonly referred to as customer service representatives.

Has a customer ever called you with a story about how a roach ruined their day? Here’s a typical story:

A cockroach meandered across their kitchen table when their family was eating the Sunday meal. A brief moment of stunned silence was quickly followed by screams, shouts and flying chairs. The youngest child was heard saying "Gross!" someone yelled "Smash it!" and another screamed "Spray it!" With all of this commotion, the roach quickly disappeared unharmed.

Why does one inconsequential cockroach have such an effect on your callers and customers? The German cockroach, which also goes by the name "restaurant roach," might be voted the most disgusting insect to inhabit people’s homes. Many people are taught that "clean" people do not have roaches.

However, it’s important for you to impart to your callers that it is not unusual to see an occasional German roach — even in homes where housekeepers are employed full time. Roaches are "hitchhikers" — they hide inside grocery bags, soft drink cartons, cardboard boxes, used appliances, used furniture, TVs, radios, etc., that people bring in from infested sources. Once these packages are stored, these stow-aways begin exploring their new home for food and water. Most die while looking, but occasionally they survive and take hold.

The German roach has become so adapted to indoor environments that few natural populations are known to exist outdoors. You can count on finding German roaches in places where we live, work, play and eat. They live, survive and thrive by eating our food, living in our dwellings and drinking our water. This cockroach is normally found in kitchens and bathrooms. It’s the one roach that can be truly dubbed the "human loving" roach since they are almost completely dependent on humans for survival.

THE GERMAN ROACH. Here are some facts that may be of interest to you and your customers.

German roach adults have wings (but don’t fly), are about 1/2 inch long and can easily be identified by the two dark "racing stripes" on the shield covering the top of their head. Immature or baby cockroaches are black with white and are 1/8- to 1/3-inch long.

The adult female remains pregnant about 75 percent of her life. While pregnant, she hides in small cracks and tight corners close to food and water. While hiding, she will seldom move, eat or drink. Her sole function is to devote all of her energy into the production of the 30 to 40 baby roaches in each of the eight egg cases she will produce during her lifetime. These young roaches — which are about half the size of a grain of rice, black but do not have the pronounced "racing" stripes — stay within a few inches of where they were born and feed on the mother’s feces. After a few weeks, they begin feeding on available food in the same area. In ideal settings, German roaches can develop from egg to adult in 46 to 60 days.

Tell customers who call that if they find where the females are hiding they will locate other adults and young roaches. If they find the area where cockroaches are located, it will tell them what areas need to be cleaned, water source(s) that need to be eliminated and crack and crevice harborages that need to be caulked.

NIP ‘EM IN THE BUD. As mentioned previously, occasionally a single roach or two may be seen in the kitchen. This is a common occurrence, even in the cleanest of homes. When this happens, tell your callers to avoid the temptation to spray the roach — this is not needed. Recommend that they kill the cockroach with "blunt trauma."

Suggest to your customers that they take a few minutes to look around the area where they first saw the roach — and then look for more. They should look:

• through clutter;

• through anything that was recently brought in (e.g., bags, boxes); and,

• for egg capsules.

DEALING WITH A ROACH PROBLEM. Your customers may have a potentially serious roach infestation if they see:

• five to 10 (or more) adult German roaches scurrying across the counter at night;

• females carrying egg cases;

• many small, dark black nymphs which may indicate that a female has recently given birth; and/or,

• a mixture of adults and different size baby roaches

If corrective action is not taken at this time, the problem will likely worsen and the roach population may grow out of control.

If the customer lives in an apartment (or other type of multi-unit housing) they might not be able to control roaches by making changes in their home alone. They may need the cooperation of their neighbors, as roaches are known to move among apartments through shared plumbing and electrical conduits. Apartment renters should contact their apartment manager when roaches become a problem. Treating a single unit seldom controls roaches in surrounding apartments.

TAKING ACTION. The best time to look for German roaches is during the night when they’re most active. Tell your customers to use a strong flashlight and get on their hands and knees while looking for them. It is important that they look in all cracks, even ones that are just 1/16-inch wide.

German roaches have many good reasons to love kitchens. The typical kitchen has an abundance of food under the stove, water in the sink and warm areas under the refrigerator and other appliances. Roaches need only go as far as necessary to find water and food. Consider the following partial list as places German roaches frequent:

• under the stove and refrigerator;

• behind pots and pans;

• under stove burners;

• in cracks and crevices under counter tops, sinks and around plumbing;

• in voids under cabinets and behind drawers;

• the hollow legs and pipes of kitchen tables and appliances;

• around hinges on cabinets and closet doors;

• in and under small electrical appliances, such as toasters and kitchen clocks;

• inside of boxes left unopened for long periods of time;

• in stored paper, cans or grocery bags;

• on the back of wall hangings, such as paintings; and,

• inside small cracks, especially behind molding.

Suggest that customers look for concentrations of:

• dead roaches;

• live roaches;

• egg cases;

• fecal spotting (dark spots in the backs of cabinets and drawers where roaches hide);

• dry fecal material that looks like grains of dark sand; and,

• An acrid odor associated with roach infestations.

CONCLUSION. Remind customers that their household vacuum cleaner should be used in areas where signs of roaches are found and that the use of a vacuum is two-fold. It allows them to clean up spilled food in cracks, as well as live cockroaches. Suggest that they use a microparticulate filter bag in their vacuum cleaner to prevent introducing cockroach allergens into the air.

Recent developments in control products have made the German cockroach a somewhat easy pest to control provided efforts are undertaken before roach populations explode. Tell customers not to panic if they see the occasional roach, since there is always the potential that cockroaches will be brought in from some unknown, outside source. If a caller has a severe cockroach problem, they should talk to a pest control firm that can assist them. Assure them that a reputable professional pest control service may use both chemical and nonchemical control methods.

The authors are coordinator, Purdue Pesticide Programs, Purdue University; assistant professor, Department of Entomology, University of Georgia; technical director and staff entomologist, Varment Guard, Columbus, Ohio; professor, Department of Entomology, Purdue University; and Extension Educator, Jasper County, Ind.