[Viewpoint] To the Customer, the Technician is the Company

“To the customer, the technician is the company.” It’s a phrase I’ve heard repeatedly from PCOs, training/technical directors, branch managers and others. Most recently, in PCT’s November cover story “Steps to Success: 10 Tips for Working Through an Acquisition,” all of the PCOs we interviewed stressed the importance of retaining service technicians from newly acquired companies. As Bob Hines, Orkin’s director of acquisitions, said, “To the customer, the technician is the company. If we lose an employee in an acquisition, that can be 250 customers that are affected.”

Comments in this article, as well as a recent podcast I conducted with Cook’s Pest Control Vice President Joey Harris (visit www.pctonline.com/podcasts), reinforce the vital role service technicians play in the success of our industry. Among the subjects Harris and I discussed was whether or not service technicians make good sales professionals. Harris said that, in his opinion, successful technicians who have an interest in sales can excel on the sales side. “So much of selling has to do with that prospective customer making their decision based on who they believe they can trust,” he said. “When a technician is selling something they have done themselves I think it comes across very clearly and plainly to the customer that they know what they are talking about.”

Regardless of whether or not your company’s service professionals will move to the sales side, the value of well-trained, dependable service technicians cannot be overstated. That’s why every year for the past 12 years, PCT has recognized a trio of standout professionals in the commercial, residential and termite categories as part of our Technician of the Year Awards Program. This year’s winners are:

• Al Moore, Massey Service, Atlanta — Residential Category
• Macy Ruiz, The Steritech Group, Charlotte, N.C. — Commercial Category
• William Graves, Orkin Pest Control, Indianapolis — Termite Category

Moore, Ruiz and Graves have more than 50 years combined experience and prove their value on a daily basis by solving difficult pest problems, dealing with customers and managing their routes. To their customers, they are their respective companies.

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PCT also is proud to honor Tommy Fortson, president of Terminix Service Co., Columbia, S.C., as its 25th Professional of the Year. In addition to running Terminix Service Co., an $87-million-a-year company, Fortson has long been one of the industry’s strongest advocates — not just in South Carolina — but nationally.

Fortson has been instrumental in the success of the Professional Pest Management Alliance (PPMA), NPMA’s public awareness organization, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Fortson, the current PPMA chairman, has been on board since the beginning. “I had long felt that our industry was in a passive, reactionary mode to our critics and had an undeserved self-esteem problem,” he told PCT.

But that’s not the case today thanks largely to PPMA, which has helped reshape the industry’s image through an aggressive print, radio, television and Internet advertising/PR campaign. The end-result of PPMA’s efforts has been the continued growth in the size of the professional pest control market — a trend that all PCOs can agree is critical to their future success.

The author is managing editor of PCT and Internet editor of PCT Online.