Top 10 Tips for Ensuring Customer Cooperation in Small Fly Accounts

Small flies in commercial establishments present PMPs with a difficult task, but Tom Dobrinska, technical services manager for Anderson Pest Solutions, Elmhurst, Ill., believes that customer cooperation to eliminate small flies is not only helpful, but essential. It is probably greater than the cooperation necessary for the elimination of any other pest, he says.  

“Some PMPs” he explains, “lack the necessary soft skills to persuade their customers to take on such a difficult task. How do you tell your client he has a pigsty without calling it a pigsty? But by focusing on several key communication skills, you can actually motivate your customer to commit to some ‘dirty work’ which, in turn, can create a sustainable solution for small fly control and provide a constant revenue stream for your company.”

With those thoughts in mind, Dobrinska offers his “Top 10 Tips” for delicately but effectively communicating sanitation advice to your customers:

1. When you’re talking to your customers about the need for sanitation to solve their small fly problems, you’ve got to be diplomatic. Tell them where their sanitation efforts need to be stepped up, but don’t upset them by being preachy.
2. Typically, a customer is doing much of what’s supposed to be done but is missing something that the trained eye of the PMP can determine. So give honest, sincere appreciation for their current sanitation efforts but suggest how that operation can improve.
3. Explain your top three recommendations to them, but initially focus on only one.
4. Compare and contrast small flies with other pests, explaining how you treat each category.
5. Show them the small fly maggots you’ve found. That will vividly communicate the importance of good sanitation and give them an incentive to improve sanitation.
6. Give them information and directions on cleaning — for example, how to properly mop a floor.
7. Empathize with their efforts.
8. Upgrade cleaning efforts if and when necessary.
9. Always follow-up.
10.  Don’t fault your customers; they’re the ones paying the bill. Dobrinska quoted longtime and much admired pest control consultant Dr. Austin Frishman with that tenth tip. “There are a lot of things a small fly control technician can do to solve an infestation, and one important thing is to encourage our customers to concentrate on good sanitation practices, such as cleaning their drains regularly,” says Dobrinska. “We can’t be with them 24/7, so essentially we must explain what we do and how it works. And provide them with the training and tools they need to create an environment that will prevent future infestations.”