In the pest control industry, it’s not enough to land new customers. In order to grow, businesses need a customer base that is happy, loyal, and comes back season after season, in addition to new clients. The companies winning right now have figured out that customer experience is their greatest competitive advantage.
Take Moxie Pest Control for instance. “Lots of people do pest control. We want to come off as more than pest control to people,” Adam Whitmore, Moxie Pest Control District Manager and two-time winner of the CSAT Branch of the Year award said.
Adam and his team emphasized extreme ownership of customer satisfaction and have made customer feedback a daily habit, not a once-a-quarter report. Here’s how they’ve done it:
The teams at Moxie don’t wait for reviews to surface to find out what their customers think. Instead, they’re taking the proactive step of asking them directly, a mark of successful pest control businesses.
Technicians monitor their own CSAT scores, and Adam monitors his branch's scores, sometimes checking the AskNicely dashboard multiple times a day. “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.
He uses the feedback gathered using AskNicely to determine the priorities for customer service training and his technician training roadmap. “The reviews from my customers tell me exactly what I need to train on,” he said. And he does shy away from negative feedback, sometimes it's the most valuable feedback they get, he noted. He even takes it a step further than using it for training. When negative feedback does come in, he works with a technician to address it immediately, so it never turns into a bad review online, and they can keep that customer.
At Moxie, everyone has a role to play in providing an excellent customer experience. They do this thanks to a mindset centered on “extreme ownership,” a principle that comes from book by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.
“Sometimes a field expert would get a bad review that initially they wouldn't think was under their direct control. Maybe scheduling messed up,” Adam said. But with an extreme ownership mindset and feedback from AskNicely, field experts have a sense of ownership across the entire experience, Adam explained. So instead of looking to the same department that messed up to fix a problem, the team is in the habit of thinking about what they can control and how they can turn the experience around for the customer. This level of responsibility results in better customer experiences and fosters growth across the business.
One of the ways the Moxie team does this is through connecting with customers. Adam expected his team to treat customers as valued people, not just another stop on a busy schedule. The team is also expected to share how they do this during team meetings.
Adam asks each team member to share what he calls “a golden moment.” These moments range from a technician bringing in the trash cans for an elderly customer or chatting with them about their favorite sports team. “Connecting person to person to build a connection makes it more than pest control,” Adam said.
Moxie has gotten creative with the ways they reward their teams for delivering excellent customer experiences. It varies by branch, but Adam has used candy bars, energy drinks, and gift cards to create friendly competition among his technicians. But this gamification would be easy for many businesses to replicate to motivate their teams.
While Moxie does have business-wide incentives as well, like vacations for top techs and an annual Branch of the Year competition, smaller incentives are equally motivating.
Rylie Peska, Director of Marketing and Communications at Moxie, was blown away to discover that every field expert seemed to know their personal CSAT score.
“We would pop into a Slack channel saying the first person to respond with their current CSAT score would win a $50 voucher, and within seconds, everyone's scores came in, and everyone was right. I was like, these guys are really paying attention,” Rylie said.
For pest control companies, customer satisfaction drives retention and referrals. Customers who feel heard and cared for remain loyal, leave better reviews, and are more likely to recommend you to friends and neighbors.
By building a culture focused on daily feedback, frontline ownership, and real-time action, pest control providers can:
If you want to grow your pest control business, start by focusing on your frontline teams. Empower them with the right tools, like real-time feedback platforms, give them clear visibility into their performance, and celebrate their wins even if it's with something as simple as a candy bar.
In pest control, the technician at the door is your brand — and when they own the experience, everybody wins.
