Customers who need a pest control company want one they can trust to get the job done quickly, easily, and effectively. Word of mouth and reviews go a long way in the service industries, and pest control is no exception.
The team at Big Blue Bug Solutions knows this better than almost anyone. The family-owned business with nearly a century of experience and deep roots in New England has worked hard for its loyal customer base. (With some help from their iconic mascot!) But when they were looking to expand, they wanted to ensure their customer experience didn’t take a hit and that they could replicate that trusted brand in new markets.
At first, the team had challenges finding the same success they had established in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in other states like Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This didn’t fit their plan to double in size in just five years. To accomplish that goal, leadership knew they needed a reliable and scalable way to capture and act on customer live feedback.
Before expanding, Big Blue Bug Solutions collected customer feedback through manual phone surveys managed by a small call center. It was inconsistent and inefficient in gaining timely actionable insights in an impactful manner.
In 2020, Luis Marulanda, Chief Strategy Officer of Big Blue Bug Solutions, spearheaded a customer experience transformation by introducing AskNicely’s customer feedback platform. The key objective? Streamline data collection while continuing to provide personalized, timely responses to customers.
Implementing AskNicely allowed Luis and his team to scale up their feedback collection in a big way. They were no longer limited by the number of calls their call center could make. And AskNicely's platform offered the flexibility Big Blue Bug Solutions needed. Now they send surveys to customers shortly after service visits, immediately analyze feedback, and share it with supervisors.
Then their technicians receive curated feedback through supervisors, ensuring negative comments are contextualized to avoid any miscommunications. The team at Big Blue Bug Solutions also ties survey results to performance incentives, like quarterly/bi-annual bonuses, to foster healthy competition among technicians and improve service quality. With this system in place, Big Blue Bug increased its survey response rate to 20%, with over 4,000 responses in 2024.
Now with years of using AskNicely Big Blue Bug Solutions has an average NPS score of 80, far exceeding industry benchmarks. It’s a best-practice leader in customer experience within the pest control industry and an example of a business approaching customer experience the right way.
Feedback is analyzed and acted upon within 24 hours, and detractors receive direct calls which have built their reputation for fast, personalized service recovery. Armed with insights into customer needs across regions, Big Blue Bug Solutions can focus on improving retention and expanding its geographic footprint organically, all while maintaining its core commitment to customer satisfaction.
"We're proud of how far we've come, and AskNicely has been instrumental in helping us drive customer impact and operational alignment," said Luis. "Exceptional customer experience is the glue that holds everything together for us."
