Documentation and Communication: Imperative to Success

Communication and thorough documentation are at the core of a successful pest management program. A lack of communication between service teams and site management, and insufficient documentation, can be a cause of heartburn for our clients, especially at the corporate level.

However, there is often a challenge in the pest management industry of ensuring these core fundamentals are instilled from the top down to the technician level. Technicians need to understand that corporate decision makers do not always have the capability to be on site and survey location conditions. Therefore, they appreciate service teams saving them a costly plane trip to that market by being able to view documentation through a client portal — documentation that provides a detailed snapshot into the service that took place. 

In general, clients expect to have pest management service comments that outline the 5 Ws:

• Who the service provider worked with at the local level
• What the service provider found
• Where the hot spots or areas of concern are within the location
• When the service provider will be following up next
• Why there is a pest issue in the first place (conditions)

Making corporate clients aware of how we as pest management providers can partner with their staff at the local level to ensure any issues are quickly resolved is also just as important. Diligence to detail when it comes to opening and verifying conducive conditions that are, or may be, contributing to pest activity, as well as pest captures that we encounter, are key. Without these components, service tickets appear to our clients as nothing more than a placeholder for a visit where we were not engaged.

At the end of the day, even if a service is not executed at 100 percent, we can always fall back on strong documentation to recap the service — in conjunction with solid communication and partnership with our point of contact at the store level. The challenge is to help technicians realize the importance of these service components, and ensure they are taking the extra 5 to 10 minutes needed to execute these key fundamentals as standard practice for all accounts serviced.

Bryan Ingold is a service quality manager for Copesan.

Copesan is an alliance of pest management companies with locations throughout North America. To learn more, visit www.copesan.com.