Sixty-Five Percent of PCOs Require Customers to Keep a Credit Card on File

CLEVELAND – Pest control operators are always seeking ways to making the collections process more efficient, and one way to do so is automate payments.

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of those who responded to PCT’s recent reader poll said they require customers to keep a credit card on file.

Court Parker, president of Bug Busters, Woodstock, Ga., sets up all new sales on autopay using CC/ACH. He started tracking autopay monthly in January 2020, and noted that collections for pest control services went from 26.72% in January 2020 to 43.05% in January 2024; for renewals it went from 7.65% in January 2020 to 18.6% in January 2024; and for “other services” it went from 39.83% in January 2020 to 46.05% in January 2024. Parker said Bug Busters’ goal is 85%, “but we continue to grow with M&A and the majority of the companies we merge with do not have email and or autopay set up, so it reduces our total overall company percentage every time we grow through M&A.” Parker also did not include commercial services in this tracking, which he said also would have boosted those percentages.

Parker acknowledged that his team does occasionally receive pushback from customers, but the overall the process works. Having PMPs interact with customers and show them their account info on handheld devices has helped. “Our PMPs can say ‘I have your account information right here [shows screen]. Would you like for me to go ahead and process it, and you can save that check?’”

Other PCOs have chosen not to require that customers. In fact, thirty-five percent of those who responded to the PCT poll said they “do not” require customers to keep a credit card on file.

Debbie Baker, owner of Don Baker Pest Control, Mattoon, Ill., said, “We do not require it. We think it should be their choice.”

Baker’s collection advice is simple. "Get payment at the time of service - it's the only way to do it,” she said.

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