Which Add-On Service is Right for Your Business?

There are many things to take into consideration when a pest control company decides to add a new service to its business, and there are many options for services to add. But there is one top recommendation that was made by every expert consulted. That is: Listen to your customers. Following are 10 Do’s and Don’ts based on this simple concept.

1. “Don’t try to give customers something they don't need; look for what they do need,” said Intertec Pest Control Owner/President Greg Parker.
2. Like Parker, Terminix Service Wildlife Division Manager H. Dixon Herman, Jr. believes the simple answer to determining the best service for your business is to respond to the market. If your existing customers are requesting a certain service, your advertising is driving requests for similar services, and/or you are currently referring similar services off to other businesses – then you should consider providing those services in-house. “In our case, Terminix Service traditionally received a number of wildlife related calls, and we responded by creating a dedicated wildlife group to provide those services,” he said.
3. Determine if your company can afford to develop additional markets and absorb the cost and risk associated with that.
4. “Add-ons should be similar to existing services,” Herman said. Confirm that the new offering is compatible with and complements existing services to ensure that you do not lose focus on your original mission. This also enables you to test new offerings with minimal capital expense by using existing equipment and labor.
5. Use a test market to introduce a new service and develop operational procedures. Once you have established that these offerings will be profitable, then look at investing and producing them company wide. 
6. Initially, marketing to your existing customer base is the most economical approach versus new campaigns for new customers.
7. Confirm that there is a definite need in your market for the add-on service, and that the market is not saturated with competitors offering the same thing.
8. Ideally, identify a service niche that no one or only a few competitors offer in your service area, but demand is high, Herman added
9. Add one new service at a time, so that you don’t stretch your people and business resources too far, recommended Univar Public Health Industry Specialist Jason Conrad. This enables you to focus resources and training specifically on that area.
10. Know when to draw the line at what is right for your business. When customers have a request for animal control – such as live snake removal, Palm Springs Pest Control Owner Carlos Campos refers them to the local animal control. “We're not trained or licensed to do that,” he said.

While add-on services should be a good fit for both your business and your customers, there can be significant differences between general pest control and an add-on service. As such, it is critical that you thoroughly research the service and prepare for the expansion. “The bottom line is that you must be competent in what you are offering and be able to provide a service that will be acceptable to consumer,” Herman said.  “In other words, don’t let the customer pay for your trial and error mistakes.”

Wildlife Management. As an example, while wildlife service can be a very profitable add-on business, there are some key factors that PCOs should understand in advance about this business segment to determine if it is right for their company. As such, Wildlife X Team International CEO Don Hudson provided a look at the primary differences between general pest control and wildlife services:

• Time Management. The biggest difference between pest control and wildlife is time management. A scheduled eight- to 10-appointment run in a day may be stopped dead in its tracks if you have to stop and figure out an animal situation for a client. Wildlife takes time, we regularly schedule two hours for an inspection if it is an average sized home of up to 2,500 square feet. If it is bigger, it will take even more time.
• Regulations. With pest control, you see what is causing the situation, and take action to kill or eliminate the offending pest. In our line of work, people don't want the animals harmed, or it may even be illegal to harm them, so what can you do with the animal? In fact, many of the situations we deal with are animals which are either protected by federal, state or even local laws. As an example, while there are only three birds not federally protected under The Migratory Bird Act, there are 700 endangered species in the U.S. – each and every one is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
• Research. We have biologists, entomologists and zoologists on staff to make sure we are following the rules; we don’t harm anything unless we have checked with authorities to make sure our paperwork is all correct.
• Customer Interaction. Clients often don’t understand that wildlife services can take time. They may say, “It only took you 10 minutes to get rid of the roaches" or “Why are you saying it might take days to get rid of a wildlife situation?" We also are regularly interrupted during the course of the day because a trap we set caught an animal which we then have to pick up immediately ... even when the client saw it yesterday, but forgot to call.
• Trapping. Issues with trapping in an attic also can be bad. For example, if you trap a raccoon, it can do more damage from inside a cage than living in residence for a long time. (Raccoons have a bad attitude when trapped.)
• Equipment. Another issue is equipment, we have many thousands of dollars in machines and tools that we use on a regular basis, quite literally for each job we produce. It can be a large investment.
• Teamwork. One person cannot do all that needs to be done; we send crews of up to 10 people to get jobs done. So you need to consider if you can afford to pull that many employees out of circulation for one job.
• Experience & Expertise. It is critical to be trained and gain expertise before adding wildlife service, otherwise it can lead to client dissatisfaction and the cancellation of all further services, pest control included. Wildlife is not to be taken lightly – sometimes it is best to give a referral rather than lose a client.

That said, if you are able to add this service, “wildlife control represents an increasingly important and complementary field within the pest management industry,” said Univar Environmental Sciences Project Manager Doug Wyly. “Many of the nation’s most successful pest management companies attribute a significant portion of their organic business growth to the rising demand for wildlife control.”

It also is an area in which Univar has specific expertise with its acquisition of Wildlife Management Supplies (WMS), which expands its scope of wildlife control products and gives its customers access to a broad array of consumable products, from traps and exclusion devices to hardware cloth, caulk and cleaning materials, he explained, adding, “The WMS acquisition gives us the capability to completely service new and existing wildlife control customers with the hardware and consumables they need to continue healthy growth in this market segment.”