Why is service communication so important? Before, after, during?
Before I had service communication automation in place, I can’t tell you how many times people were like, “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming out” or “You should have reminded me you were coming, I could have put my dog away.”
So many times that happened before we had automation in place.
I’m Jake Sheldon, co-founder and co-owner of Pest Control Millionaires, a successful marketing program for pest control companies. I also own a portfolio of different service companies including cleaning, pest control, movers, and more.
And I can tell you, another thing is it’s just good customer communication. You’re going to retain customers longer because it’s just something that you should be doing.
And it really does prepare the customer for when you’re coming. They could have a dog that’s outside, and if you send them a 15 minute reminder that you’re coming out on autopilot, that’s important. They can put their dog away.
I think that’s definitely something customers actually want to be sent. You might give them a general timeframe of, “We’ll be there around 10.” “Hey, we’re going to be there a little bit late, just letting you know.” Or “Hey, is it okay if we come 15 minutes earlier? Here’s exactly when we’re going to show up.”
So I think it does prepare them. And again, this isn’t like it’s a dentist’s appointment and you’re going to them. You’re entering their home. So it’s pretty important to let them know, “Hey, just letting you know, are we still good for today?”
The 15 Minute Before Service Text Is a Must
What should you actually be sending before the service? What does that message look like?
Very simple. And this is a must. You must let them know that you’re on your way.
And I find that a lot of companies aren’t doing this. I think it’s one of the most important things you can do for your service, just simply letting them know that you are on the way.
And this could be a 15 minute reminder, 30 minute reminder. We do 15. Just letting them know that we’re simply on the way.
And so let’s say the service is for 10 a.m. That’s just automated to send at 9:45.
We use a system called Gorilla Desk and a lot of these other systems do it. FieldRoutes, Gorilla Desk, I think even Jobber. Most of these platforms have the ability to do that.
So if you guys don’t have that set up, you need to set that up.
Is that pretty easy to set up? That’s just a one time thing?
Yeah, it’s very, very simple to set up.
Send a Service Completion Text
And then what about during the service or after the service you should set up?
After the service, it sends them a text just letting them know that we finished.
And then even our technicians, of course, take the notes, what chemical they used, what they did. That goes into the notes description.
And then we send them a quick text letting them know that the service was done and executed. Just so that there’s no miscommunication on if we even were there, did the service, or anything of that nature.
So another thing that we like to send out is a review request that’s automated. And I’m sure we’ll jump into that a little bit. But we always, always, always are trying to gain more reviews. So you can automate that as well, getting a review request.
The If-Else Statement for Reviews
Let’s talk about the review request. Obviously, we both know how important getting a review is on Google or even other platforms like Yelp and Facebook. Hopefully if you’re reading this, you’ve maybe seen some of our other posts and trainings on why they’re so important.
But let’s talk about how to automate collecting reviews and sending out a request to new customers or existing customers if you haven’t sent that already.
For a lot of pest control owners and really any service based business owners I talked to, a lot of them are just hoping that reviews are going to come in. Or they’ll even manually send out a text maybe once a year or twice a year. And they’re just taking the time to actually text and get those reviews out.
Or they’re just not doing anything at all, which is common as well.
It is so important, just like we talked about in previous posts, to get those reviews. And the best way to do it is just automate it. Just automate it.
After every single service, just ask them how their service was, get the review. Even if they’ve left a review, we still have them leave an internal review for us after every single service.
And do you ever ask for, because I see some companies do this, which I don’t really recommend, but I’d like to hear your thoughts. I’ll see a long winded approach of first you ask them for feedback and then if the feedback was positive, then you ask for a review. Do you think you should do that?
Yeah, you can do that. We actually do that. It sends out the internal review and depending on what they left, so if it’s a five star, it will then send them the Google review.
And then if it’s a four star or below, say for example, they leave you a two star, well, you don’t want them to leave that publicly. So you can have the automation, like we talked about earlier, if-else statement, it will actually not send them your Google review link.
And then what I have it do is I have it text all the owners in the company, or you can have it send to the general managers or whoever you want. And it will send them, “Hey, Jimmy Anderson left a two star review.”
And it can text them that. And so they know that Jimmy Anderson left that review and you can call them back.
“Hey, Jimmy. Hey, I saw that you left a two star review. I just wanted to see, is there anything that we can do to help? What was the actual issue?”
Again, you’re providing great customer service. Saying, “What was the problem?” “Yeah, your tech didn’t shut my gate” or “Your tech tracked mud in my house” or whatever it may be.
You can hit that issue head on. And that way it doesn’t go weeks or months where you found out that that happened and you didn’t take care of that issue.
So that’s the power of automation too. You can also stop issues or even cancellations before they happen when you have this kind of system set up into place.
Keep Humans on Phone Calls
How do you strike the right balance between automation and personal touch in your service communication?
That’s a fantastic question.
You don’t want to be completely all AI, all automation. For us personally, we still like to jump on the phone with every single one of our customers and close deals.
There are some very, very minimal cases where we’ll have automation close a sale. Very, very rare. But at the end of the day, most of our customers, still in today’s world, this may shift, right? The world shifts. But as of now, we still have every single one of our calls jump on with a real person, a real personal human touch.
That also gives us opportunity, like we talked about in previous posts, to upsell them on other services. That’s hard to do through text. You also can tell them about your referral campaigns. You can also tell them about your gift giveaway campaigns. And that’s very, very difficult to do with a chatbot or an AI bot.
That personal touch means a big difference to people. And they’re human, right? They feel like they’re actually talking to, well, because they are, a live human. It’s a lot more personalized when it’s a human talking to you.
Because this video could all be AI, right? Just type in the script and have this thing go back and forth. But you guys know it’s real. It’s a lot more personalized touch. And that’s what people want still, I believe.
Again, that may shift here in a few years. But we do everything still with a personal touch when it has to do with selling.
Now as far as anything that can be automated through text, like just a simple reminder, you don’t need to call them every single time. Because they’re already a customer of yours. They already like and trust you. They’re already on service.
So you don’t necessarily need to call them to just let them know you’re coming out. That can be a text message.
When they’re already a customer, they already like and trust you, you’ve built a relationship, simple stuff like that you can automate just through a text.
Software Never Forgets
No, I think there is not necessarily a fine line, but there are plenty of circumstances where it’s okay to automate.
I would have no problem with hiring a pest control company and they send me an automation 15 minutes before the service saying, “Hey, we’re coming up.” Even though I probably know it’s automation, it seems like it’s almost templated and it might even put my name in all caps or something on accident.
But I wouldn’t have a problem with that because that makes it easier on them and it also ensures that it happens. Whereas the tech might actually forget, whereas the software never forgets. It’s always going to send that notification.
And something else I’m collecting from this is that at least right now, because the landscape might change of how we communicate with each other, it seems like right now the back and forth messaging can be done with something like ChatGPT or automated in some capacity. But then when it’s the phone, it should be all person, all people.
Yep, 100%. I think anything phone should be people.
There are AI bots that are coming out that do an okay job. They’re not quite there. I would even say after hour calls are okay for an AI bot. At least now.
But we even still, even our after hours is still done by live human or virtual assistant overseas.
So I do think AI is almost there though. It is almost there where it sounds like a real human. It’s not quite there yet. People can still tell. So it’s not quite there. But by the time you’re reading this, it might already be there.
Honestly, I thought the AI call answering services would already be perfect by now. So it is taking some time.
It might be by early 2026, whenever, I guess this is just something we have to figure out.
Regardless, there is something attractive about the imperfection of humans that we can just talk here and we screw up a little bit and we mumble sometimes. But it’s nice to connect with people. It doesn’t always have to be robots.
Set Up Service Communication Automation Today
The bottom line is this: automate your service reminders. Send a text 15 minutes before you arrive. Send a service completion text. Automate review requests after every service.
Use if-else statements to filter reviews. Five stars? Send them the Google review link. Four stars or below? Alert the owner so they can call and fix the issue before it becomes a cancellation.
Use Gorilla Desk, FieldRoutes, or Jobber. They all have this capability. It’s simple to set up.
Keep humans on phone calls for sales. Automate texts for service reminders. The software never forgets. Your techs might.
And don’t be completely AI. People still want to talk to humans when it matters. Save the automation for the simple stuff.
Keep Learning and Growing
Want to connect with over 2,000 pest control business owners who are automating service communication? Join our free Facebook group, Pest Control Millionaires. We share automation workflows, review request templates, and CRM setups every day.
And if you want the exact service communication automation we use, check out Zip Code Kings. We break down the CRM settings, text templates, and if-else logic that keeps our customers happy and our reviews flowing.
Now go set up that 15 minute reminder and stop missing the dog and gate issues.
