2 minute read
Cleankill
Paul Bates, Managing Director Cleankill Pest Control
COMMUNICATE TO GROW
Cleankill is a supplier of public health pest and bird control services to commerce, industry, restaurants hotels, schools, colleges, universities and hotels – in fact any building where people live or work.
Pest control is mostly about prevention, and every offi ce block and every restaurant in every city will have some form of pest control. If you go to the United States, people will go and eat in a restaurant, and if they see a pest control van outside as they know that the restaurant is taking care and attention to keep free of pests.
However, in the UK the pest control industry has a different image and people tend to think that a pest controller outside a restaurant is not a good sign. This is because we have not communicated the message that pest control should be about prevention rather than cure.
In my experience, around 80% of problems in the workplace are communication related. Workplace communication is important to companies because it allows them to be productive and profitable. Employees will experience an increase in morale, productivity and commitment if they are able to communicate both up and down the organisational chain.
Salespeople must communicate their services and products to their clients; managers must communicate the ideas of their bosses to their staff; bosses must communicate their ideas to their manager. Even when you fi rst start work, possibly at the very bottom of the pile, if an idea or instruction is not communicated properly, the interpretation of that idea could end up very differently from the original idea. The fi nished object will have gone through so many changes, it is nothing like the originator’s initial intention if communication is poor.
In pest control, there is still the one brand that effectively is the ‘Hoover’ of the industry. As far back as 1985, Lenny Henry was on stage at Wembley in Live Aid, introducing UB40 to sing ‘There’s A Rat In My Kitchen’…and to an audience of one billion viewers said, ‘I’d call in Rentokil!’
At Cleankill, we have had to get out and communicate to our marketplace that there are alternatives; especially alternatives who are far more highly accredited, who will be far more economic and whose staff stay with them.
Cleankill is the only pest control company in England to have achieved the Investor in People Gold accreditation. We are main contractors for two prestigious, international property fi rms, and we are the ‘go to’ company when pest problems are in the news for BBC Radio Surrey and Sussex; broadcasters who trust us to give factual information and advice.
Because of our treatment of staff, who all get private healthcare for themselves and all dependants, who get all of their pension contribution paid by us as well as many other benefi ts and who all get continual professional development, we have many small companies now offering themselves to us when the current owners decide to retire. All of this is as a result of effective communication which has taken us from zero turnover to, I hope, in excess of £4million by the end of this fi nancial year.
