Information is power, and one of the most powerful tools a pest control business can use to support growth is analytics. Through smarter insights, organizations of all sizes can make choices that drive greater profitability. Business analytics allows pest control operators (PCOs) to understand and adapt to operational data and financial benchmarking metrics to make intelligent business decisions.

The need for this type of technology has escalated, with many PCOs adapting their tools and processes to align with cloud-based pest control software. Companies are learning they can achieve more with actionable insights into their business performance through the data their digital solutions collect.

THE ESSENTIALS OF BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND HOW IT’S REDEFINING THE PEST CONTROL INDUSTRY

Business analytics involve a number of moving parts, so many PCOs may be unsure where to find the most crucial data or how to draw meaningful insight from it. Think of business analytics as the tool your company needs to make actionable decisions; there may be an initial learning curve, but it will ultimately impact your entire business and allow you to improve profitability, sales and operations.

A PCO might look at the percent of customers not serviced to understand if their company is as efficient as their competitors; they might look at their average invoice age to determine if it’s taking them too long to collect payment and whether they should hire a billing manager; they can look at their ratio of work orders to technicians when deciding how to scale their business.

The data within business analytics dashboards can go beyond answering simple questions to provide insight into which services drive revenue or profitability. By analyzing this data with management in mind, PCOs can see how specific branches or technicians are performing, the reasons for that performance, and how to adjust accordingly.

EMPHASIZE MANAGEMENT INVOLVEMENT

Access to reliable, actionable information is the key to success for decision makers. Traditionally, the biggest weakness of business intelligence technology has been its inability to show managers the everyday areas they can take action to prevent issues. Studies show that a typical business leaves 72% of organizational data untapped for further analytics. By using these business analytics tools, pest control companies can create management solutions and link actual results to key performance indicators (KPIs) to gain a better understanding of how their performance stacks against their business and operational goals.

“Pest control companies must keep a close watch on customer satisfaction, and analytics can create new dimensions for this.”

INCREASED BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

Actionable business analytics allows you to plan for the future. By modeling trends in an organization’s sales, profits and other key metrics, and projecting them for the future, business analytics allows businesses to see changes that may occur annually, seasonally or on another cycle. That insight empowers companies to prepare and plan.

Predictive analytics uses past performance data to recommend how to handle similar situations in the future. This facet of business analytics not only determines outcomes, but can also recommend specific actions that need to occur to attain positive results.

IMPROVE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Pest control companies must keep a close watch on customer satisfaction, and analytics can create new dimensions for this. Many of the leading pest control organizations use predictive analytics to anticipate their customers’ needs and ensure exceptional service and engagement.

With the right tools in place, business analytics can be a massive game-changer for pest control businesses and the industry as a whole. Organizations that tap into this potential can utilize insights to form a baseline for decision making to not only improve technician performance and streamline efficiency, but also to gain actionable insights into business performance.

BY RICK AGAJANIAN, VP, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, WORKWAVE

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