Be proactive to prevent cancellations

Photo: ©iStock.com/Nonwarit

We all have customers who decide to cancel their pest management services. What if you could take proactive steps to prevent cancellations?

The first step to achieving this monumental goal would be to take inventory of why your customers are canceling. Setting up an early-warning radar system to identify the signs of a future cancellation is key. Let’s look at three common reasons for cancellations, and what you can do before it happens:

1. They’re moving out of your service area.

Ask your technicians to notify office staff and management if a “For Sale” sign suddenly appears in a customer’s yard. Start early to let the customers know that, because their termite service is transferable, it is a selling point in the real-estate market and may help facilitate the sale. It will also be very helpful to you too, if you can gain a new customer from an old one.

Follow that up by creating a list of prospective customers that are in the process of selling their homes and moving. If they are moving within your service area, you want to keep them as a customer. If they are moving out of your area, have a program in place to ensure you contact the new homeowners to sell them your services.

2. They dislike a change in service technician or feel they received poor service.

Do you use a report card system to follow up with each customer on the service being performed? Are customers happy with your service? Are there any issues with a new technician that could put customers at risk of defecting? If so, it’s better to address such problems early on.

Sending out a survey to get feedback can be helpful to everyone. If the feedback is great, share this with the technician; it will build confidence and loyalty. If the feedback is not so good, address it with the customer first and then immediately with the tech. Correcting the problem fast will let customers know you care about them — and will let technicians know you’re monitoring their customer service skills. A simple follow-up phone call from your office staff to verify satisfaction can be all it takes to provide great customer service.

3. They can’t afford it anymore.

You may be able to retain these customers by switching them to a service plan they can afford. In turn, they could become more loyal to you for helping them out. It could be just a matter of providing them service on an on-call basis, rather than at scheduled intervals.

Whatever you have to do to save customers is likely going to be far more cost-effective — and better for your reputation — than letting them get away.