Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger is Jeff Jones, Vice President of Admiral Pest Control, a pest control and extermination business with two locations in Los Angeles and Orange County, California.
Admiral Pest Control is a fourth generation family-owned business. The company was started by my grandfather in 1947, and with every generation there have been new ideas on how to run more efficiently. We handle everything from termite inspections, to pigeon control for residences and businesses throughout the Long Beach area. With a team of 40 people, we’re big enough to accommodate the needs of our clients, but small enough to have a personal relationship with them too.
For many years, we had a Microsoft Exchange server and when it came time to upgrade, we realized we needed a change. The price to upgrade was costly and we had experienced frequent outages. So, we decided to switch to Google Apps for Business which offered a far more reliable and cost-effective way for our employees to communicate from their desks or the field.
Our staff spends a lot of time at customer locations and can now easily check their email and schedules from their mobile phones. They can see where their next customer visit is or whether there’s been a cancellation without making a trip back to the office.
We’ve also improved how we communicate with our customers using Google Forms. We embedded a form on our website where customers can fill in their contact information and describe the problem they’re experiencing. Incoming inquiries are centralized in a single spreadsheet that gets updated in real time as a form is submitted. We’re able to better manage requests and reply quickly, and our customers appreciate that we make it so easy to contact us. Customers can also provide feedback on our services through a separate form on the website.
Google Apps has helped us to better communicate as a team and better communicate with our customers at a price that fits our family business. We’re excited to have Google take us into the next 65 years.
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