This Does Sound A Little Unlikely but....

I had an old customer, but not a regular customer, call us yesterday to make an appointment for skunk and red squirrel removal.

For whatever reason, she had a hard time remembering us and went on-line. She got a father and son team, much like my son and I

were years ago, before one of our customers screwed everything up and said that my son looked just like me! ( Apparently, that's

not a complement ) Anyway, getting back on point; this father and son team seemed to have realized that they would not make a

nickel on this job and since they purported to be us, they have seemed to do their level best to make us look absolutely abysmal.

Unfortunately for whoever this was, sanity prevailed and I was able to set the whole thing straight. I guess, because I really

can't imagine something like this in our type of work, I need to ask you guys, does this stuff really happen?

Copying...best kind of flattery.

Seriously Dave, how many people have tried to impersonate you? Ha!

Neither skunks or red squirrels are hard to catch so what was their problem? The red squirrels will chew their way back in if you don't trap them all out first though.

I don't think anybody. Wants to impersonate me.

Had a customer call the wrong number but asked for me by name. The other guy said I wasn't there at the moment but he could help. Customer got suspicious and recognized his mistake so he had a friend call and do the same thing a few hours later and the guy did the same thing.

Customer let me know what was going on. Not much I can do about it.

Just did an attic behind one of the same guys bat jobs after he yanked the customer around so much she told him where to go. We go to do the attic and there are still bats in there.

Guess the quality of his work is on the same level as his integrity.

I find this to always be true.

Image problem.....

About six months ago we had a fairly new to the area competitor rent a booth at a local home and garden show and told folks that stopped by if our company name or my name came up in the conversation he was telling them he worked for us and that I was retiring and he was taking over the business. I had never met this guy in my life and wouldn't know him if he walked in our front door! Five of our clients called us the next day, two of which we were actually working for at the time,to see if all he said was true. To make a long story short, he's still around but I guarantee he doesn't mention me or my company to anyone anymore!

Thanks guys. When I started this business, I had practically no competitors, so I really didn't have anyone to steal the business

from. In the twenty some years we've been doing this, I've almost made it my business to introduce myself and our business to

competitors. This has proven beneficial to us, our competition, and especially to the our combined customers. You probably have

no idea how much a disreputable member of our very limited number of businesses can cost you. We have an ongoing situation where one

of our more notable franchises has no idea what is going on. Since we used to have no trouble recommending them, we needed to make

it very clear that this particular franchise is under new management and that we will try to fill in for them as best we can.

I got a call from a new customer, I was recommended by another Pest control Company, I don't know who it was yet, but I did a mouse exclusion a couple of years ago, that was referred to me by another company. That customer liked their guy for their bug work, they liked me for their mouse work, so everybody was happy.