DIY: The Devil or Opportunity?
Pick a profession and you will find someone trying to “do-it-themselves”. Pest control
is no different; we’ve seen the tools of our trade sold from hardware stores, rural
stores to supermarkets. This has been going on for decades and its likely not to
change, whether we like it or not.
The question is, does it really affect PCO’s business or is the DIY market in a league
of its own? We see paint being sold in the same locations but has no visible affect to
professional painters.
Let’s take a look at the US market, a place where you can buy enough guns to
defend a small country, and all the pesticide you need domestically in the DIY
market. With a larger population (314 Million) compared to Australia’s (22 Million)
you would expect the pest control market to be fourteen times larger than the
Australian market. It isn’t, it’s fifty times larger than our market! DIY would appear to
have made little or no difference here.
Of course access to information has changed everything. Everyone knows more
about anything at the press of a button leading to the rise of the instant expert,
we’ve all met one. Not only information but the means to act on it and buy the right
product for the right purpose. We’ve even dumped unsold product through eBay
rather than pay the disposal fee.
You will have seen a number of new sites on the rise supplying this demand such as
“Easy Pest Supplies” and “ePest Supplies”. Some of these are actually run by pest
control companies themselves and sell the full range of professional products to end
users.
We just uncovered a well known manufacturer selling directly to end users at
http://www.protect-us.com.au. This is a new development, the question is where will
it end.
If you think this is going away, think again. Business is changing on all fronts as we
change the way in which we communicate, engage and service our customers.
Where demand lives supply will not be far behind. We are living under the
assumption that when they fail they will call the experts.
New beach heads are being forged and the ones that win are the ones that control
the customer relationship. Being in front of the customer by having existing
relationships, owning their information and providing value is the key to getting
repeat business, referrals and viewed as the expert in the first place. Hoping DIY
fails and that they call you when it does is a recipe for failure!
DIY is here to stay, getting annoyed with customers or fighting it is an incredible
waste of your time and effort. It’s time to educate your customers on the value they
get with your service, the guarantees and most of all protection your service
provides.
