Pest control companies, other small businesses changing with the times

Category: Pest Control, Technology Updates

For businesses in various industries, evolution is key, as it can make all the difference in forging ahead to the top of the field or falling behind.

For Phil Waldorf, the 71-year-old founder of Bell Environmental, a pest control company, the way he does business has changed since he originally founded his business in 1963.

“We had primarily used DDT for rodent control, and everyone in the industry worried about how they’d make it,” Waldorf told Businessweek. “We just got mouse traps and started getting contracts for commercial facilities. Instead of spraying once a month, we went in once a week to empty the traps and it quadrupled our business.”

Changing the services they offer is not the only way pest control companies can change with the times. Many of exterminator businesses, and other companies that offer field service work including those in the plumbing, HVAC and electrical industries, can adopt new technology and software to improve their processes and operate more efficiently.

There are mobile apps available for smartphones, digital tablets and laptop computers, which allow field service professionals to communicate directly with their supervisors and learn up-to-the-minute specifications from the customer. Using these apps can increase service business profits by as much as 17 percent and business productivity by 27 percent.

According to the news source, a recent survey of 750 small business owners revealed that 53 percent of respondents said they reinvented their businesses in the past two years.

“Small business owners are especially adept at reinvention,” Maria Veltre, managing director for Citi Small Business, a division of Citigroup, which commissioned the study, told the news source. “Change is never easy, but neither is starting and running a business. The small business owners I meet with think about their business 24 hours a day and constantly figure out how to do things differently, with less expense and better than their competition.”