A strong economy and a wealth of readily available tools make it a good time to be a PMP who offers cockroach service.
Each year, the professional pest management industry becomes a little more sophisticated. There are new software apps, techniques and products to try — all to ensure pests are controlled and customers are happy.
While optimizing the technician’s time spent on a job is a useful pursuit, it makes sense to also keep the fundamentals of inspecting, identifying and choosing the right strategy for a particular account. It’s especially true with cockroaches, where a one-size-fits-all approach can lead to callbacks and worse, a resistant population. That’s the advice several pest management professionals (PMPs) gave among their responses to our 2017 Cockroach Management Survey.
Photo: ©iStock.com/Wi6995
It’s advice that many PMPs must be following, too, as 43 percent of our survey respondents report a projected 2017 revenue of $100,000 or more in the cockroach segment. Of these, 8 percent plan to generate $1 million or more from cockroaches alone.
Unsurprisingly, the strong economy makes for an optimistic outlook: A full 82 percent of respondents expect their cockroach management revenue to rise this year over 2016, with 9 percent of them hoping for 50 percent or more.
The majority of respondents offer monthly service for cockroaches, with others reporting quarterly, and even weekly stops. Eighty-five percent of respondents report callbacks to be in the single digits, with 56 percent reporting the rate at less than 5 percent — and 12 percent reporting no callbacks on cockroaches at all.
And while it would seem that the industry has got the cockroach game down pat, some obstacles still rear their head now and then, including the continued abundance of do-it-yourself products on the market; having to take time to educate home and business owners; and fierce pricing competition in their markets. For a breakdown on what exactly you should be charging at a cockroach account, particularly in a multiple-family housing setting, check out PMP Hall of Famer Bob Kunst’s take.
Smart PMPs know to take an integrated, individualized approach to cockroach accounts — one strategy is not going to fit every job. Baits, liquids, insect growth regulators (IGRs), glue boards and sanitation techniques are in our respondents Top 5, closely followed by dusts, vacuuming, exclusion techniques, granulars and where warranted, fumigation.
Editor Heather Gooch can be reached at hgooch@northcoastmedia.net or 330-321-9754.
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