For over a decade I was in the pest management industry and watched as the companies I worked for fleeced their customers. It wasn’t intentional on the part of the owner and management, but it still happened. The way they fleeced their clients was a problem called “ghosting” by their service technician and it is costing individual customers hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year.

“Ghosting” as it refers to the pest management or wildlife removal industry, is when a technician pulls up on a client site, logs into the service software system as if they were going to perform service, fills out the report, finalizes it, and emails an invoice, all without leaving their vehicle. 

At one of the companies I worked for before starting Huntsman Wildlife here in Cincinnati, I was the Quality Assurance Auditor for a company of over 75 technicians. One of my duties was going behind the technicians and verifying that their work was being completed to the standards that the client and the company expected. Sadly, I found many instances of “ghosted tickets”. Rookie techs, veteran techs, it did not matter. In fact, I would go as far to say, there is not a single pest control technician in the industry today that has not ghosted at least one ticket in their career.

When I would question the technicians as to why they ghosted tickets, the responses were varied, but here are the top five that were often repeated:

1. The client does not have any issues so what does it matter

2. The weather was too hot/cold and I did not feel like going out in it.

3. My route is too full and I can not complete it all on time

4. I did not have the right tools/equipment/materials to get the job done.

5. No one was home, I did not think I would get caught

While numbers one and two are solely the blame of a technician taking advantage of the employer at the cost of the client, 3-5 are due to BOTH the technician and the company failing the client. Let us break down those three to understand it better.

“My Route is too full and I can not complete it on time”

In today’s pest management and wildlife removal industry, there is a growing trend of mergers and acquisitions so the “hot new thing” for owners and managers is hyper fast growth then selling the company for a price based on each revenue dollar of contracted services. The more revenue a company can show they are servicing, the higher the buy out will be. I personally have seen technicians with sometimes 12-15 stops scheduled in a single day. My opinion is that is too high of a workload for any field staff, no matter their experience. In order to complete the work, corners have to be cut, and often times that affects the clients the most.

 Huntsman field staff are scheduled to allow for 75 minutes per stop, and the wildlife removal operators (WRO) or exclusion technicians (ET) are empowered to contact the office and change their schedule if the 75 minutes is not adequate to do the job the RIGHT way. We promise that no Cincionnati Huntsman client will ever feel like we raced through their service.

“I did not have the right tools/equipment/materials to get the job done.”

Lacking tools/equipment/materials is a tricky issue to deal with. On one hand, the technician is usually responsible to ensure their truck is properly stocked and outfitted at the start of the day to complete all scheduled services to standard. On the other hand, I have heard horror stories from technicians about the “one company shared ladder” or the “two raccoon traps for every five techicians”. This type of company policy is more revenue and cost driven than client focused service.

Huntsman Wildlife WRO and ET vehicles are inventoried and restocked nightly to be prepared to respond to the next day’s services. Some companies require their staff to drive their vehicle home each day to save gasoline and time. At the end of the day, Huntsman  WROs or ETs park their vehicle on site and fill out an electronic daily requisition form and email it to the leadership staff. That ensures a member of our leadership team prepares the vehicles for the next day for our operators and technicians. This gives valuable time to our WRO and ETs in their day, ensures all equipment and tools are stocked and in working order, and all materials are available when needed. It makes EVERY member of our team accountable in ensuring no client is left unserviced.

“No one was home, I did not think I would get caught”

This should be put into the number one spot as it is the most frequent excuse. Too often I heard staff explain the reasoning for ghosting tickets with these 12 words. Often times, companies try to insure against actions like these with GPS technology, or on site checks to ensure the work is being done. However, these are often times not reliable. GPS is only good for showing that the vehicle is on site, and how long it was on site for. It can not track whether the proper equipment was used, or the right materials were applied. Follow up checks or audits can be hit and miss as it is hard to check every site serviced every day. The technicians know that random quality audits are a numbers game. Some are willing to take that gamble.

At Huntsman Wildlife we developed a simple and easy way to minimize the chances of ghosting ever happening. If at the time of service the client is not on the property, it is a company wide policy that along with the service paperwork, a short cell phone video is emailed/texted to the client. In that video the WRO or ET is required to take cell phone video showing themselves on the client property explaining the services they performed, and any important details about the services performed. This video is attached to the service paperwork and invoice and is logged in our client software. Again, we at Huntsman have built in accountability to ensure our Cincinnati clients are getting exactly the services they paid for and deserve.

I can't promise that never will a member of the Huntsman Wildlife organization ghost a service ticket. But I can assure our clients that the team we enlist, the culture we have created, the policies that we live and work by, and the procedures we have in place are all designed to ensure that Huntsman is the top of the leaderboard in the Cincinnati area when it comes to client focused, results driven animal removal and exclusion work. 

There will always be an element of human error that will sneak past us, but open and honest communication between all Huntsman staff and clients is the best way that we can be accountable to our community.

Till next time… see ya folks.