How real-time feedback helps pest control companies improve CX

In the often commoditized and saturated pest control industry, winning new customers is only half the battle. The real challenge (and opportunity) lies in creating loyal customers who come back year after year and recommend your service to their friends and neighbors. And what drives that loyalty more than price or speed? It’s the customer experience (CX).  

How your technicians communicate, show up on time, and follow through on promises shapes every customer’s perception of your brand. But here’s the catch: you can’t improve what you can’t see. Waiting days or weeks to find out about a problem means missed chances to fix it, and ultimately lost customers.

In the world of pest control, real-time visibility into customer feedback and empowering frontline technicians to act on that feedback is the secret weapon that separates industry leaders from the rest.

The reality of field service: Blind spots and missed moments

In pest control, you’re not just kicking out rats, roaches, or other pests lurking in the walls, you’re chasing out worry, too. The job isn’t done until the customer feels completely confident and cared for, but getting that insight isn’t always easy. Managers can’t be on site to see how every technician interacts with customers or handle issues firsthand. This leaves big gaps in understanding the customer experience. 

Because of this distance, negative moments often go unnoticed until it’s too late. This may be after a bad online review pops up, or worse, a customer cancels their service. Without real-time feedback, companies are left reacting to problems instead of preventing them.

Traditionally, technicians themselves rarely get immediate coaching or recognition, which means missed opportunities to fix mistakes or celebrate wins when they matter most.

Jacob Kosiara, Chief Operating Officer at Platinum Pest Solutions, explains how this disconnect was impacting their business: 

“Anytime a customer would want to leave us or cancel services, we were reactive to the issues. And in some cases, we didn't even know the issues were occurring.”

Without the right visibility into those frontline moments, pest control businesses risk losing trust and customers without even realizing it.

Why real-time feedback changes the game

The secret to closing those blind spots is real-time, visit-specific feedback. When pest control companies can hear from customers immediately after service, the opportunity for improvement arrives.

For technicians, daily insights into how they’re doing create a powerful feedback loop. They know what’s working and where they can improve, without waiting weeks or months for a quarterly review. This kind of transparency builds pride and ownership over their work.

For managers, real-time feedback offers a clear window into the frontline experience. That view can be used for coaching based on actual service moments, not guesses, assumptions, or generic and irrelevant playbooks. When a customer isn’t happy, teams can act quickly to recover the relationship before it becomes a lost account or a bad review.

This immediate insight helps pest control teams transform customer experience from an afterthought into a daily priority, giving them a real competitive edge in a crowded market.

Where most pest control companies fall short

Collecting real-time feedback is one thing, but having systems set up that enable and empower your technicians to act on that feedback is what matters. 

According to the 2025 State of Customer Experience Management report, only 36% of home services companies act on customer feedback in the first 24 hours. That means nearly two-thirds are missing a critical window to reassure their customers, resolve issues, and reinforce trust. 

In pest control, timing is everything. A customer who spots a cockroach after a treatment doesn’t want to wait days to hear back; they want immediate reassurance that the problem is under control. Delays create doubt, and doubt chips away at confidence.

The companies that stand out are those that empower their frontline teams and give technicians the tools, visibility, and autonomy to respond to feedback in real time. 

Pest control companies leading the way in awesome CX

Platinum Pest Solutions 

Platinum Pest Solutions isn’t your average pest control company, and they don’t treat customer experience like an afterthought. Specializing in preventative pest control for both residential and commercial clients, Platinum knows its value isn’t just in keeping the pests out, but in keeping customers happy and confident.

Before adopting AskNicely, they had no reliable way to collect customer feedback, let alone act on it in real time. The team needed to be more proactive instead of reactive when it came to identifying service issues and opportunities to improve the customer experience.

“We wanted a tool to grade our technicians. What we've gotten is so much more, and it’s paid dividends already,” said Jacob Kosiara, Chief Operating Officer, Platinum Pest Solutions

Since implementing AskNicely, they’ve transformed how they manage customer experience. In the first few weeks alone, they prevented the loss of a key account by responding quickly to a service issue flagged through customer feedback. 

Now, the team uses detractor alerts to trigger follow-up visits and recover potentially at-risk customers. On the flip side, promoters receive a personal call from the sales team, thanking them for their feedback and asking for referrals. 

They’ve also seen early success with CSAT surveys, achieving a 4.1 score just two weeks after launch, and driving a 13% response rate across all feedback channels, far better than their previous manual outreach.

Looking ahead, Platinum is focused on automating even more of the feedback process, from triggering surveys immediately after service to routing issues to the right people without delay. With full-team alignment around feedback-driven action, Platinum Pest Solutions is proving that great CX isn’t just for big brands; it’s a competitive advantage for anyone willing to listen and act.

Learn more about the Platinum Pest Solutions success story here. 

Aptive

Aptive Environmental is one of the fastest-growing pest control companies in the world, and they credit much of that success to a relentless focus on customer experience. From day one, co-founders David Royce and Vess Pearson knew that the key to standing out wasn’t just great pest control, it was building a frontline team empowered to deliver exceptional service at every visit.

As they scaled, inconsistency in service delivery started to slip into their business. Despite a strong culture, frontline team members had different interpretations of what “great service” meant. The result? Rework, missed expectations, and lost referrals.

To close that gap, Aptive turned to AskNicely. With real-time customer feedback flowing directly to frontline teams and local managers, every technician now has a clear understanding of what’s working and what needs improvement. Managers use these insights to coach effectively and recognize wins, turning feedback into daily fuel for performance.

“Using AskNicely has transformed how we work with our field service team,” said Dane Dellenbach, Sr. Director of Strategy and Innovation. “We’ve already seen a 28-point increase in NPS, and the rework savings alone have paid for the platform.”

Aptive’s CX transformation shows what’s possible when you invest in your frontline, act on customer insights, and build a culture where great service is the standard, not the exception.

Learn more about the Aptive success story here. 

Moxie Pest Control 

Moxie Pest Control has cracked the code by making customer experience their frontline priority, not a back-office metric.

“Lots of people do pest control. We want to come off as more than pest control to people,” said Adam Whitmore, District Manager at Moxie and two-time winner of the CSAT Branch of the Year award.

That philosophy has transformed how Moxie operates. Rather than treating feedback as a quarterly report, the team at Moxie makes it a daily habit, using AskNicely to gather real-time insights and empower their technicians to take action right away.

Every technician at Moxie knows their CSAT score and takes pride in it. “CSAT doesn't pay the bills, but our customers do, and CSAT is how satisfied they are with us. This is the most direct tool we have,” Adam said.

Using AskNicely’s dashboard, Adam monitors his branch’s performance throughout the day, using feedback to shape technician training and set service priorities. Negative feedback isn’t ignored; it’s treated as a chance to turn a service miss into a customer win. That proactive approach has helped Moxie reduce churn, avoid bad reviews, and retain valuable customers.

Learn more about the Moxie success story here. 

Ready for your own success story? 

In pest control, customer experience doesn’t start in the boardroom, it starts in the crawlspace, the driveway, and the customer’s home. When technicians get timely, actionable feedback and understand how their work impacts customers, it changes everything.

By empowering your frontline with visibility, recognition, and ownership, you create a customer experience that drives loyalty, reduces churn, and fuels growth.

Ready to see how AskNicely can transform your pest control business from the ground up?

Book a free demo today to discover how real-time feedback turns your frontline team into your secret weapon.