Automated communication features within pest control software can streamline the way businesses communicate with their customers. Technology advancements have enabled companies to automate personalized messages to customers, a more efficient alternative to manually sending communications such as payment and appointment reminders or other announcements.
Software allows companies to send messages to customers in their preferred format, whether that’s email, text message or voice messaging. Chris Murphy, president of Inman-Murphy in Memphis, uses software to create audio messages for his customers.
“I do our company commercials on the radio myself, so I'm the voice on radio that the customer hears around town,” Murphy said. “We do audio messages that we send to them announcing it's their time for service. So I do the audio messages as well, and that way they're hearing the same voice that they hear on the radio.”
Most pest control software packages allow a variety of message customizations, such as scheduling a message to send 30 days before a renewal or personalizing messages specific to a customer, service or property type. For example, if PMPs are using the software to send out an appointment reminder, they can set a phone reminder to send to the customer a week before the appointment, an email reminder to go out a couple of days before the appointment and a text reminder to send the day of the appointment. After the service is complete, PMPs can schedule a follow-up email.
Chase Hazelwood, CEO and owner of Go-Forth Pest Control in Greensboro, N.C., recently used his software to send out a bulk price increase letter to about 20,000 clients. Go-Forth’s marketing department built the letter, plugged it into the system, set a filter for the customers they wanted it to distribute to and sent it out. The entire process took about two days, Hazelwood said.
“It was just remarkably easy, and it looks very, very professional,” he said.
Both Hazelwood and Amanda Ragar, owner of Natural State Pest Control in Lowell, Ark., use their software’s text messaging capability as a primary way to communicate with customers. Two-way texting has “revolutionized the way that our office staff handles text messaging and communicating with customers,” said Hazelwood.
Ragar’s software allows customers to text back within the operating system and logs each communication. “Those notes are even saved underneath the customer contact tab,” she said. “So you can actually see the responses of the customer sending back and what we're sending out. It gives you a history of our communication with the customers.”
Autopay Assists Company and Client. Autopay, another automated feature available in many pest control software packages, routinely charges a customer’s credit card when an outstanding balance is due. Clients can be billed monthly, quarterly or at other intervals.
Ragar said most of her customers are on autopay. “You can click a button and see who all has had an invoice emailed to them and the last time they had an invoice sent to them,” she said.
With the click of one button, she said, all invoices are delivered. “We can send automated voicemail messages, text messages, email, print statements or invoices, all from one screen,” Ragar said.
A recurring automatic bill saves customers from taking time out of their day to make a payment, and the software spares Natural State from having to send individual billing notices. Forgetful customers who miss payments and incur unnecessary late fees may especially prefer this set-up.
Keeping customers on autopay also allows Natural State’s accounts receivable balance to stay low, Ragar said.
“The only thing we have to really do is maybe update expired credit cards, but we can send out a mass text message to those customers,” she said. “We're not going to call them each individually.”