Hi Folks,
Daily report from the front line.
We had a good workshop with the Irish sales and service teams with a highly interactive session with approximately 35 people. The format worked very well again and I think we are onto a winner here.
Mike Potter ran a great session on bed bugs from their history to feeding and breeding patterns and exemplified this with some almost pornographic videos; all really appreciated by the Irish Team.
Mike O and Colm then ran a break out session to look at our new proposition. This was highly interactive and stimulated lots of learning: Andy took over the best practice presentation today and also came up with an interesting demo of how a radar CO2 canister can be used to excite bed bugs – well done Andy.
Key learning’s;
– the Irish team had done a great job in identifying some key price points for various options of the a proactive service.
– there is general buy in to this as an approach across the Irish business and Mike O’ made it clear that preventative spraying was old world Rentokil.
– training is important. Furthermore the content of the training we give must differentiate what our technicians can do in a 20 minute detailed inspection and what a house keeper can do on a regular basis when servicing a room.
A lot of good work done in Ireland to identify these criteria. I will convene a meeting with – Italy, Ireland, and Spain to share and compare and contrast in about a month.
Other key points to emerge; sales people want to offer guarantees; this was discussed in considerable detail along with the reasons that this must not be allowed.
It was also clear that the level of bed bug knowledge in the field is generally low. Events like this are highly effective at putting the record straight and imply that France may well have missed out by not holding a sales and service event after their customer event.
– Heat treatment as a control method again stimulated a lot of interest.
– some great feedback from Mike Potter at dinner and I quote ‘ I am really impressed on how Rentokil is trying to develop new approaches and not use the material he has presented in an unethical way simply to scare customers to pay more – this has not always been his experience in the US and he finds our approach a breath of fresh air’.
Probably lots more I could put in but I am sure you get a flavour for the excitement and great work that the team have pulled together in Ireland.
And finally – you may have picked up on the internet that a hospital in Ireland has been having terrible problems with bed bugs and their current PCO appeared to be exacerbating the problem. As a result of all the publicity surrounding bed bug week, the hospital contacted Rentokil today and Mike is confident that we land a contract before the end of the week.
That’s all from your own correspondent today – tomorrow the road show hits Madrid.
Cheers
Pete
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