Midstate Termite & Pest Control Case Study

After A Software Search Far And Wide, Midstate Stays Close To Home 

By Eddie Wooten

The first time that Randy Adcock chose a software company—two decades ago—he needed one that would help Midstate Termite & Pest Control move into a more modern era.

"Handhelds were where I wanted to be," Adcock says. 

He visited every vendor at a National Pest Management Association meeting, and one stood out: ServicePro's ServSuite.

"They cared about me from the beginning," Adcock says. "Before we were just using it for scheduling and billing. That was it. They helped us with marketing, being able to send out emails. And they were more handheld-friendly, paperless.”

Eventually, customers would be able to go online to pay their invoices from Midstate.

Fast-forward to 2023, and the company in Cookeville, TN, has made another transition, this time away from ServSuite by FieldRoutes.

Wanting his company to be positioned to grow further and setting it up for leadership by his son, Ethan, Randy Adcock shopped around again, seeking a better solution for scheduling and routing. 

And after sitting for 30 demonstrations of software systems over two months, the Adcocks decided they didn't need to leave the ServiceTitan family.

"We went through everything," Adcock says. "And FieldRoutes stood out to me to answer the problems that we were facing."

Whether it’s been the use of tools to add new customers and assign appointments, to schedule and tighten routes, or to simplify communications and collect payments from customers, Adcock believes FieldRoutes will help Midstate continue to grow.

“FieldRoutes gives us the tools,” he says. “I’m very pleased. If I could back up and do it again, I wouldn’t change the decision.”

‘It wasn’t about killing bugs; it’s helping people’

Benton Young, the great uncle of Adcock’s wife, Cindy, founded Midstate in 1953. The company, in fact, still operates from its original location on West Broad Street in the town that is nearly a midpoint between Nashville, 80 miles to its west, and Knoxville, 100 miles to the east.

Cindy’s father, Morgan Young, bought Midstate with a partner in the 1970s and assumed sole ownership in the 1980s. Midstate hired a particular part-time employee in December 1987, helping Randy Adcock develop not only his first experience in pest control but his interest in the owner’s daughter. Randy and Cindy would marry, and then they bought the company in the mid-1990s and ensured that Midstate remains family-owned in the 70th anniversary year of 2023. 

Ownership might have changed hands within the family, but Midstate’s mission has not. 

"It wasn't about killing bugs; it's helping people," Adcock says of the mindset started by Benton Young. “We'd end up cleaning out people's cabinets. We would haul ladders around the house. Move furniture. Anything that would help the customer."

A company must make money to remain in business, of course. And Midstate does.

"We've never talked about how we can make more money," Adcock says. "We'll do a lot of stuff that we shouldn't be doing for free because we want to take care of people. Then the money comes after that. It always follows."

Helping Cookeville through two disasters

March 2020 put the notion of helping people to the task for Midstate—and then some. The Covid-19 pandemic gripped the nation and world, putting some businesses in hardship as it sickened the population. 

That catastrophic development was the second within two weeks to confront the people of Cookeville.

In the early-morning hours of March 3, an EF-4 tornado packed 175 mph winds as it churned up 175 homes and claimed the lives of 19 of the town’s 35,000 residents. 

The storm narrowly missed the Midstate office. Two of Adcock’s employees' homes required repairs that forced them out temporarily, and a relative of one Midstate team member lost their home.

"Everyone at our company had a family member or somebody that lost a home or couldn't live in their home," Adcock says.

So Midstate shut down for a few days.

"Let's just quit work and start helping the community," he told his team. "For about a week, that's what we did."

Midstate employees provided assistance to not only each other but to residents of the area they serve. They assisted as people removed and cleaned belongings from damaged homes. They found new accommodations for those who needed them. They offered food and other necessities. 

And in the days and weeks ahead, with the destruction and the vacant foundations serving as abiding reminders of a tragic night that wrecked the places their neighbors called home, they delivered comfort. They helped the customer; they took care of people.

"This is a close-knit community," Adcock says. "Hardly anyone lives here that doesn't have a family or a connection. So you pick them up and keep on rolling."

A new era with FieldRoutes

Keeping Midstate Termite & Pest Control rolling is what Adcock expects FieldRoutes software to do. After all, it was ServSuite that ushered Midstate into a new era.

“Their platform really helped us grow,” Adcock says. “It required us to become professional.”

And now it’s FieldRoutes’ turn to help its partner take the next steps. Midstate is finding favor with a number of the software tools since its official go-live on March 16. Among them:

• The ease with which Midstate can enter information about a new customer and assign an appointment is “worth its weight in gold,” Adcock says. 

• He grants the same 24-karat weight to the ability for customers to sign documents in the field for Midstate technicians and to get a credit card on file, even before an appointment is scheduled. And the same ease now accompanies use of WDI (wood-destroying insect) forms for customers, technicians, and office staff.

• Intelligent Routing and Visual Grouping are helping Midstate tighten routes for technicians. Fill Routes, on which Adcock says he was really sold, schedules routes while considering existing appointments and jobs that are due when finding the most optimal routes. In the first five months with FieldRoutes, Adcock says, hourly average production for his technicians rose 5%, and costs for fuel and overtime fell.

• Scheduling a workload a week out, with 10 stops for his technicians, and sending notifications two to three days in advance are painless. "Takes two minutes to do, and we're finished," Adcock says. 

Remember how handheld was where Adcock wanted Midstate to be? 

“This has allowed us to be totally paper-free and have better control and recordkeeping,” he says. 

Acknowledge the pain, then get the benefit

Just to be clear: Changing to a new software provider is not easy.

"Any transition is a pain. It's just terrible, right?" Adcock asks. "You know that. It doesn't matter what program you go to.

"But it has been less difficult than I anticipated."

Adcock touted the FieldRoutes implementation team—"I can't say enough good about them," he says—but also credits his own team for engaging right away during training. 

And now Midstate is in position to pursue legendary success, although Adcock cautions that it’s about serving the customers and not what his business might achieve.

"Legendary to me is having the bells and whistles that make it easy for the customers to do business with us," he says. "FieldRoutes does a great job with that. They're able to schedule online. They're able to pay online. They're able to communicate with us, and we get the notice.

"I've even gone back and looked at a couple of others (providers) that were close seconds, just to see how this would work."

That exercise has left Adcock and Midstate Termite & Pest Control with no regrets.

"It was the best decision," he says.

MIDSTATE TERMITE & PEST CONTROL

Owners: Cindy and Randy Adcock

Locations: Cookeville and Crossville, TN

Years In Business: 70

Technicians: 13

Office Staff: 7

Online: MidstateService.com

Contact: 931.526.4222 or midstate@midstateservice.com