No More Free Estimates

Simply by flipping through the local phone directory, it is easy to get a good idea of the number of companies offering free estimates in a doomed-to-fail attempt to attract recurring business. Sadly, there tends to be far more pest control companies willing to advertise in this way, who are willing to give away their services in the hopes of gaining market share.

The whole idea of free estimates forces pest management professionals to turn our services into commodities and compete solely on price. This not only harms profit margins, but it hurts the industry's overall position as pest experts as well.

It is a natural human desire to find the best price for a product or service and thus many people do scour service providers' ads for the magic words "free estimates". They rail against companies who charge money merely to visit their premises and complain that coming out to diagnose the problem should be part of the price of doing business.

However, consideration is often not made for the amount it actually costs us companies merely to drive our service vehicles to their homes and businesses. In addition, the labour costs involved when technicians are actually diagnosing the problem is often not taken into account.

All the while a pest control officer is at a site premises, this is one less actual service call they can do during the day. This robs the pest control company of revenue and gives customers the impression that we don't value the expertise we have brought to their pest problems. After all, if we do not charge appropriately for the time and training, why should they care about such concerns?

Of course it is difficult to justify charging for estimates when the nearest competition are giving them away for free.

By charging for initial inspections / estimates, but then offering to take it off of final bills if a contract is signed protects the integrity of what a pest control company does for a living while softening the associated shock for the customer.

We owe it to ourselves to stop offering these industry-destroying Trojan horses. Free estimates devalue a pest control officer's job – something no-one in this industry should ever do.

SDA Pest Control, "Long Acre", Bluntisham Road, Needingworth, St. Ives, Cambridgeshire
01480 465684