case studies...

Improving value perception and keeping 'price' from being the customer's primary purchase motivator.

Pest Control Business with nine offices across the Southwestern United States.

Our client wanted to improve customer retention and better understand the customer's experience when their technicians visited. They were concerned that they only heard from really upset customers, and that most of the feedback they received was filtered through the technicians themselves. They also wanted to improve the customer's value perception of their pest control service, and differentiate themselves from their competition. They wanted to de-emphasize price as a factor in the customer's choice process.

MINDSHARE™ was installed to allow our client to get immediate daily results from their customers. The invoices and orders for each day's service are preprinted and divided among the technicians. A preprinted offer to call a toll-free number and receive an incentive is at the bottom of the invoice. The customer calls the number, answers a few questions via the telephone keypad, and receives a redemption code good for the next service.

In the client's own words, "We've received an overwhelming response from customers willing to give us both positive and negative feedback. My favorite aspect to the system is that I can listen to messages directly from customers." Contrary to pre-conceived notions, the client discovered, among other things, that there is an obvious correlation between time spent at the customer's home and intrinsic value to the customer. Their pest control customers, in effect, did not want the technicians to show up, do their work, and leave -- they wanted them to stay and spend more personal time with them. "With this daily customer feedback, we are now able to perform services that are earning praise from our customers."