Tuxedo Mosquito Control Case Study

The nattily attired mosquito, still an understated element of Tuxedo Mosquito Control’s logo, signals that customers can expect a high level of service.

The black tails and red bowtie are marketing magic in a logo highlighting a rhyming name that was originally intended to invoke a connection to Atlanta’s Tuxedo Park neighborhood.

Fact is, the name alone would be quite effective. “There’s no question as to what we do,” says Robert Pittman, the company owner.

With a switch to FieldRoutes® software, and the addition of the FieldRoutes Marketing Suite, now there’s also no question as to how Tuxedo Mosquito Control is faring.

The Georgia business, with branches in South Carolina and Tennessee, has relied on word of mouth, its trucks on the road, and some SEO smarts to help establish that presence. With the Marketing Suite, Tuxedo Mosquito Control is dressed to the nines for even more success.

“One of the big challenges is figuring out, ‘OK, where do we invest those dollars and where do we put those dollars to work, and then how do we track their success?’” Pittman says. “Through call-tracking numbers and the dashboard, having all of that data able to be tracked and then compared to previous time periods is a huge element for us.”

Dashboard And Data ‘So Valuable To Us’

The integration of the Marketing Suite into FieldRoutes software has smoothed and streamlined operations in the business, which Pittman’s father-in-law, David Maddox, opened in 2003 before selling to Pittman in 2021.

“What the marketing side does best for us is it feeds our contact-us forms right into the software, but it allows for a more centralized management of the business,” Pittman says. “Anytime you can start to bring in and centralize your operations and all of the silos that you have in your business, that makes a lot of sense.”

Among the Marketing Suite’s features, the FieldRoutes Compass marketing portal consolidates data from multiple sources and attributes marketing dollars to actual revenue generated. While Pittman says the company name leaves clear its mission, the portal is part of FieldRoutes’ ability to leave clear how the company is performing.

“Being able to look at a pie chart or a bar chart and see a number, you can learn everything you want to learn about our business from a single dashboard,” Pittman says. “But moreover, the ability to click into the data that is behind all of those charts is so valuable to us. And to know how we’re tracking month over month on revenue as compared to last month, or what the seasonality of our business looks like, or what our accounts receivable picture is like, or on average what amount of payments do we receive in a given month of the year.

“Being able to look at that data, click in to see what’s underneath it, and then manipulate it with the dates for each metric is huge for us from a management perspective.”

Efficiencies Are In The Fold

A change from their previous software provider has introduced multiple improvements for Tuxedo Mosquito Control.

Operations Manager Ari Ivers gets less of a workout over the paper-folding machine. In the past, Ivers would spend an entire day getting invoices prepared to be mailed. Pittman, after taking over the business, quickly saw enough of that.

“She would print those paper statements off, and then she had a machine that clamped to the desk,” Pittman says. “You would set the paper in there, and it would really quickly go through and fold them all into a tri-fold envelope. But never would it take the whole stack perfectly.

“And so it jammed one of the things in the middle of the stack and then just would crumple up the rest,” Pittman adds. “Then she would have to figure out how many were folded properly, how many weren’t, reprint the ones that were damaged, put them back into the machine, pray that it would fold them correctly, then stuff an envelope, apply a stamp, lick the envelope, seal it, then drive it to the post office and mail it.

“And the very first thing that I wrote down on my notepad that day was this: ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this.’”

There was.

“Christmas!” Ivers says, her voice rising with excitement to describe a new software system.

Several hours spent on one day a month dwindled to 10 minutes.

“Trigger Rules are my favorite thing in the entire world,” Ivers adds, referring to FieldRoutes technology that permits customized actions on customer accounts, such as reminders about an upcoming service or a subscription renewal.

“We use them for sending particular customers who have specific requests to get an email reminder instead of a text reminder, and they need it exactly one week ahead,” Ivers says. “Weird requests are so easy to accommodate with the Trigger Rules, and I don’t have to set up myself a four-week reminder every single month to do this one little task for one customer out of 2,000 we’re serving. It makes things so much more efficient for me to not have to think about those little tiny details.”

Pittman, sitting with Ivers, says she probably wouldn’t admit that the change in software has made her job easier.

“It did,” she says, with a laugh. “I would admit it to you.

“It was switching from MS-DOS to a Porsche.”

Meeting The Expectations

Scheduling, and managing those schedules, also got easier for Ivers. And the new technology has received a hearty welcome from Pittman’s team.

“All of our employees that we bring in, whether it’s a technician in the field using the app or someone in the office, they pick it up really quick,” Pittman says. “It’s not a constant training process or a, ‘Hey, how do I do this or that?’ That part is huge.”

The technology also allows Pittman to put his full attention on plans for the company, on “healthy profitable growth” as the core strategy. And the right technology can be a strong partner to make that happen.

“Our customers expect this level of communication and functionality,” Pittman says. “They expect appointment reminders. They expect you to remember the nuances of their property that are notated in red notes (in FieldRoutes software). They expect the ability to pay with a credit card through a customer portal or be set up on AutoPay. It’s an expectation. And if you don’t have that, you are not going to make a very favorable impression on prospective customers.

“Not only that, your employees, too,” Pittman adds. “The fact that they can know and see in an app what their schedule looks like. Employees want efficiency and they want the ability to maximize their pay and efficiency through technology.

“Having a software like this, it’s an expectation of our customers and our employees. And for that reason alone, you should absolutely have something like this.”