CONSUMER AWARENESS GUIDE

Seven Secrets That Help You Pick The Right Pest Control Company

Ask These Seven Questions To Make Sure That Your Pest Control Company’s Policies, Procedures & Standards Will Protect You From An Unpleasant Experience

So, You’re Thinking About Hiring A Pest Control Company?

  • Read this guide and you will discover 6 costly misconceptions about pest control, 7 questions to ask a pest control company before you invite them to your home, 8 mistakes to avoid when choosing a pest control company, crawling critters, and invading mice.
  • A guide to the vermin, bugs and parasites that’s seeping, creeping, and galloping through your home (often undetected).
  • Read this guide to learn how to avoid common pest control rip offs. The importance between value and price.

Dear Homeowner,

Choosing a pest control company isn’t easy. Why? Because you’re forced to choose among a series of companies that you have never dealt with, confusing claims, and simply bad information from worthless guarantees, and high-pressure sales to unqualified technicians using near worthless methods.

How do you ever find a qualified, competent professional pest control company?

You start by reading this guide.

We wrote this guide to help you better understand pest control. Now with this information you can make an informed, intelligent decision.

1. Do They Offer A Guarantee?

There are all types of guarantees in the pest control industry. Some companies don’t offer guarantees, while other companies do offer them. Due to this difference it tends to be hard to compare prices between different companies.

Why You Need A Guarantee

Guarantees are quite important in the pest control industry. When you have a pest issue and you call a pest company you want to make sure they will come back to your home if for some reason the pest comes back.

Why would a pest control company do a good job at your house if there’s no guarantee and you’ll have to pay them to come back?

Most pests leave behind pheromone trails or scent marks that signal to their kind where they are. This can lead to pests finding their way to your home even after an initial batch has been eliminated. Unfortunately, some pests are quite clever and can survive many efforts by an inexperienced technician to get rid of them.

To guard against that occurring to you make sure that your pest company offers a guarantee in case the pest comes back.

Common Guarantee Pitfalls

The difference in guarantees are not clear to most homeowners. For example, a company comes to your house and gets rid of a pest issue for you and a few weeks later the pest comes back. When you first called them as a new customer, they showed up the next day and gave you confidence to hire them because they offered a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

However, when you call them to request, they come back as part of their guarantee, they suddenly tell you about scheduling conflicts. They are now booked for the next weeks.

Other companies offer very long guarantees. One year in some cases with no follow up treatments. How can they do that since EPA approved treatments don’t last longer than a few months? Well some of them end up charging you a trip fee when they do have to follow up.

Some of these details on guarantees can be found when checking a company’s reviews online, particularly the bad reviews.

2. Do They Show Up On Time?

Why People Get Tired Of Pest Companies

The number one reason why customers switch their pest company is because they get tired of their company showing up late or not showing up at all.

Endless Waits

Have you ever scheduled a pest service and then after waiting for hours no one showed up?

When you called them afterwards you were put on hold for more endless waiting until you were told that your appointment was mysteriously rescheduled to next Monday. But no one told you about that in the morning when you told your boss you would stay at home for the pest company?

Or maybe the company did show up, but it was hours late?

Many pest companies are more focused on squeezing as many customers into a day as possible rather than focusing on providing good customer service.

Many Pest Companies Overbook Appointments

The reason that so many pest companies don’t show up at all is because they overbook appointments. They expect some customers to cancel and when no one cancels they don’t show up for your appointment.

6 Costly Misconceptions About Pest Control

  1. All guarantees are the same
  2. Most pest issues can be solved with one treatment
  3. Using a lot of product is more important than a thorough inspection
  4. All pest control technicians are the same
  5. The more you spray the longer the issue will stay away
  6. All treatments are the same

3. Is Their Work Thorough? Do They Fix Your Issues The First Time?

Think Like The Pest

The secret to good pest control work is to think like the pest does. That requires going through the attic to find nesting spots, looking through kitchen cabinets to find voids where pests could hide and checking the basement for entryways from the outside. To do this type of work requires a certain time commitment. Many pest companies don’t hire enough technicians to do the work. They skimp on the required investment and the results are poor.

Twenty Customer Visits Per Day

When companies put profits above customer service they schedule as many appointments as possible in a day. Some companies in the pest industry schedule up to twenty customer visits per technician in a day.

Just do the math. If a technician has to go to twenty customer homes in an eight-hour day. It just doesn’t leave the time to do a thorough job. In fact, industry insiders say some of these companies do “drive-by” visits. Their technicians have just enough time to leave an invoice slip in your mailbox.

4. Does The Company Have Reasonable Arrival Windows?

Tight Arrival Windows Are A Sign Of An Organized Company

When a company gives their technicians a reasonable amount of time to do their work, they are able to promise customers tight arrival windows.

If a company tells you that you can expect a technician to show up between 2pm to 6pm it is a sign that they are pushing their technicians to do as many appointments as possible in a day without regards to any thoroughness. As previously mentioned, it is not unheard of that technicians for some of these companies do twenty stops in a day.

Many of these companies pay their technicians on a commission basis, forcing them to rush from job to job. The result is generally low customer satisfaction and no effectiveness in getting rid of pests.

5. Is The Company Easy To Get In Touch With?

Confusing Call Centers

If a company has you wait through an elaborate menu system before reaching a service representative it is a sign that they could be difficult to reach if you ever have any service issues.

These elaborate menu systems are a sign that there is no single person in charge. When problems come up customers get passed around from representative to representative until they give up.

Who Do You Call When There Is An Issue?

Pests are unpredictable and when you want a year-round pest free home you need to know who to call when something pops up in between service visits.

6. What’s Their Employee Turnover Rate? Are They Constantly Losing Technicians?

Some of the big companies have reputations of having a revolving door for employees. They have to constantly hire new technicians to make up for the one’s they lost. When they lose a few technicians at the same time they don’t even have the time to train a new employee to get him ready.

Training Pest Control Technicians Takes Time

Training new pest control technicians takes some time. Unlike other service companies, pest control technicians don’t perform just one task repeatedly. They have to understand how to do an inspection. Figure out what the issue is and what is causing the issue. They also have to understand how to do a treatment. Find the root cause of the issue and eliminate it right at the source. Lastly, they need to understand what can be done to prevent the issue from coming back.

Pest Control For Mice, Ants and Bees/Wasps Is Different

At the same time, they need to understand this process for mice, ants, bees/wasps and several other insects. For each insect or pest, the inspection, treatment and prevention are a bit different.

For someone to become good at this, it does take time. Evidently, a company with a high employee turnover rate will not be very good at it.

7. Do They Have Online Reviews And Are They Encouraging Feedback Online?

Online reviews aren’t always 100% truthful, but a lot of times they can portray a more accurate picture of a company then just reading their website or listening to their sales presentations.

What It Means When A Company Has No Online Reviews

Some companies don’t even encourage online reviews. Keep in mind that online reviews provide a way for frustrated customers to vent their anger. If a company doesn’t allow online reviews there’s no way for any upset customer to have their voice heard. When there’s no public outlet, what incentive is there for a business to treat their customer’s right?

In other words, most businesses who treat their customers right are able to showcase it through the numerous online reviews they receive.

Where To Find Reviews?

The number one place to find reviews for pest control companies is Google. You can find those by searching for a company name on Google. Another website with a lot of reviews is pestreviews.org. There’s also Angie’s List, Homeadvisor and Yelp.

Other than online reviews there’s the Better Business Bureau. For a business to be in good standing with the Better Business Bureau they are required to respond to customer complaints. If a business is not responding to your requests you can go through the BBB to have it resolved. If the business doesn’t respond this will be publicly acknowledged by the BBB. The BBB is a place where you can find government actions outstanding against a pest control business. Sometimes you will also find that businesses are misstating facts on their website. Overall, the BBB is a place that weeds out some of the more egregious companies.

8 Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing A Pest Control Company

  1. Hiring a pest control company that doesn’t guarantee their work
  2. Not having a follow up treatment plan in place
  3. Picking a company based on price alone
  4. Choosing a large company because you have heard of them before without checking their online reviews
  5. Thinking that a one-time service can solve deep-rooted issues
  6. Not taking preventive steps to make sure an issue doesn’t come back after it has been successfully treated
  7. Waiting until you see a number of issues until you call somebody
  8. Letting an issue linger resulting in the issue becoming deeply embedded in your home

In Conclusion

When you’re hiring someone to do any type of work in your home, remember it’s your money and your home. Be sure to ask all the questions on your mind and clearly understand the answers you receive.

Our service is designed with prevention in mind. In fact, the strategy I use to fight pests at your home is the same that I use in my own home around my own family. My goal is to resolve pest issues at the source.

To do that we look for common entry points for pests into your home and seal them up. We usually find those around structural deficiencies such as uncaulked cracks and crevices, and openings around pipes and utility lines. By fixing these we dramatically reduce the amount of chemicals we need to use to resolve pest issues. I do it this way around my home because I do worry about chemical usage around my family. I think you’ll find that it’s also the right way in your home.

This type of preventive work is particularly effective when done before any pests show up. So don’t wait around and give us a call today at 201-301-4273 to schedule your service. If you are still curious about our approach to pest control, I would be happy to answer all of your questions.

But don’t take it from me.

Just take a look at the feedback we have received from our clients.

Caitlin Burke Testimonial
Donna Penna Testimonial
Stacie Rose Testimonial
Andrew Koo Testimonial
Angela Testimonial
Jason Testimonial
Helen Testimonial
Lisa Testimonial
Mark Testimonial

Call Today And Get Your First Service For Only $99

As a gift for the readers of this guide only, I am offering your first service for only $99. That’s a savings of over $100 compared to our regular prices. However, this offer won’t be available for very long so make sure you call today.

Sincerely,

John, Owner of Company

John Melchior

Founder, Kapture Pest Control

Double Your Money-Back Guarantee.

We’re convinced that we’ll successfully remove pests from your home and keep them out. If they return, so will we and you’ll receive unlimited re-treatments at NO extra cost until the problem is resolved. But if our proven system doesn’t live up to your expectations within 90 days, we’ll cheerfully double your money back, no questions asked!

Contact Kapture Today for a No-Obligation Phone Consultation and Quote:
201-301-4273