As a pest management or wildlife management professional, you are always looking for value to provide your customers. Often the value comes in the delivery of service and the approach to your job. Other times the value comes in the products and programs your company offers. Either way, the secret to maintaining happy customers while growing your customer base is to think like a customer.
What is Service Mapping?
Service mapping can be a crucial component to your overall marketing and sales approach that pays off huge dividends in time. Service Mapping is a visual artifact that contains the definitions and steps necessary to transform and route requests and responses between customers and your company. In order for service mapping to be effective, your company’s employees will need to look at how your customers engage with them and begin thinking like a customer.
Employees will then unpack each route of service/product delivery to determine what is done well, where the customer experiences any pain points, and how the customer’s interaction with the company can be improved. Each route will create a unique and separate map which, when added together with all maps, helps to identify the company’s approach to customer service.
Who Does It Best?
A great way to launch a service mapping exercise is to look at those companies, whether in your market or in another field altogether, who excel at service delivery and product promotion. If your company offers scheduling of pest control services online, consider looking at those companies who have the highest ratings on Angie’s List. Explore how they differ and what impact it has on the user.
When someone calls your company, how does their experience compare to when they call your competitor? Is there an automated phone tree or a live person to interact with? How and when does the caller get transferred? How easy is it to connect to the correct department or individual? How long is the caller placed on hold? These questions will help define a service map and highlight strengths and areas which need improvement.
What are the goals of a service mapping exercise?
The goals might look something like this:
- Collect insight on how the customer experiences our product(s) and service(s). What works well and what doesn’t work?
- Engage staff in creating a customer-centric shared view.
- Use a customer journey map as a starting point for innovation to unlock processes, “wow” moments, and new processes to revolutionize delivery.
- Prioritize efforts that significantly drive revenue and build lasting relationships with clients encouraging them to expand their relationship with the company and refer new business.
- Help all staff realize the true ‘pain points’ clients experience to strengthen the customer experience.
How does it work?
The team behind TAP® Pest Control Insulation are always looking for ways to improve our service delivery. Monthly meetings are held to get in the customer’s head space. Team members share their experienced ‘pain points’ and allow a collaborative approach to problem solving. The result has been transforming for our individual team members as they now feel empowered to problem solve. It has also increased our customer loyalty and referrals.
The key to success lies in your company’s ability to think like a customer.