How to be the #1 Pet Waste Removal Business in 2024

Think about the last time you went to get fast food at a place you’ve never tried and they completely messed up your order.

Your burger was missing and they put ice in
your drink when you specifically said “no ice”.

Even though you were still hungry and ate
the food, at the end you thought “I’m never going there again”.

That’s what I call a horrible “customer experience”
and it’s the one tool you can focus on to differentiate why your business and services are better than your competitors.

By the end of this blog I will be sharing my best practices that I’ve learned in my 12 years of customer service to give your clients an optimal customer experience and maximize the potential of your pet waste removal business.

We first need to identify what “customer experience”
means and why it’s important as you continue your journey as an entrepreneur.

The customer experience is the impact and
perception a customer will have over the course of every interaction with your organization.

Every moment a customer has a “touch point”
or interaction with your business is an opportunity for you to “wow” them and hopefully inspire loyalty to your brand.

A loyal customer is a happy customer, and how customers feel about your brand  can benefit you in several ways:

• It can boost how long a customer retains your
  services for or the “Customer Lifetime Value”.
• A loyal customer will be more likely to recommend your services to friends and family.
• It will impact your brand’s reputation in
  having high quality service.
• and it can give your business a competitive
  advantage over other companies in your town and state.

First Impressions are everything and the customer
experience starts the moment they land on your page or see one of your advertisement posts.

Do you have a clear and defined “value proposition”
of the type of service you provide or what your business is about?

Your Value Proposition is the promise you’re
making to your customers as a business and is the reason WHY they should pay for your services.

As the attention spans of people continue
to get shorter and shorter it’s important that your value proposition is clear and concise so any potential customer will know exactly what you offer in as short of time as possible.

Do you have before/after pictures and videos
showing the benefits of your pet waste removal services?

As poop scooping is a business not a lot of
people would know about, it’s important to have that visual representation of your service to quickly drive the value you bring to your customers.

Your posts and advertisements should have
a “call to action” that you encourage your potential customer to do, whether it’s to message you or share your post to someone they know.

This call to action is the necessary step to get your customer invested in your services and potentially pay you for those services.

Even though we are running a business, behind
every dollar is a person.

Part of the Customer Experience you want to
focus on is personalizing that experience to give your customer that “human touch”.

Whenever someone reaches out to you, I make
it a habit to acknowledge that client by their name.

Our name is a core part of our identity, and
when someone acknowledges you by name, you naturally pay more attention and are invested
in what they are saying because they see “YOU”.

Basic compassion and manners will truly go
a long way when it comes to running a business.

When you show appreciation and thanks to your
customers, you are acknowledging that they may have busy lives and that you aren’t trying to waste their time.

Putting these two ideas in practice, make
a habit of saying the following sentence when a customer first reached out to you:

Hi (whatever their name is), thank you for
reaching out!

You can then go through your normal script
of probing questions to provide the best accurate quote

• like the number of dogs they have,
• what town they live in
• and how long it’s been since the last cleaning?

Once your customer replies, show appreciation
and follow up with:

Thank you for this information!

I really appreciate it.

Once you’ve provided the quote and your customer
agreed, it’s important to set expectations and be proactive with your communications.

Tell the customer exactly what to anticipate:

The date and time you will be servicing them.

Assume your client has a busy schedule and
letting them know when to expect you will make their lives at least 1% easier.

You should also let the customer know that you will text or call them when you are on the way.

This is especially important in our line of
work as you do not want to be scooping poop and have a dog start barking at you or worse accidentally
bite you.

You should also discuss your methods of payment
so there is no confusion the day of service.

In my experience, a customer will typically
ask this first before you head over but it’s important to set this expectation as you want to get
paid for you service.

Once the day of the appointment arrives, remember
the expectations you made with this specific client.

Proactively let the customer know 30 minutes
to an hour in advance that you will be on the way.

This will give your customer ample time to get ready and put their dogs away.

You can learn more about my best practices for Scooping Appointments in this Article.

When you’re done with the scooping appointment,
it’s time to get paid!

This is your chance to let the customer know that you’ve gone through the whole yard and made sure you scooped everything you could find.

This will further reinforce why they are paying
you for your services especially if you make the payment process as easy as possible.

You can always accept cold hard cash, as well
as utilizing payment providers like Venmo, Cashapp and Zelle with a quick scan of your QR code on the app.

If you decide on using a paid service like square, you can automate these payments at whatever cadence you agree with your customer, and you’ll just be a re-occurring charge on their monthly statement like the coffee shop or Netflix and Hulu.

If your customer decides on setting up a weekly
or bi-weekly scooping, make sure you set up the next date of service as soon as possible!

Since I have a Facebook Business page, I utilize
the appointment calendar to set up my scooping

appointments.

This allows me to finish my scoops and as soon as I receive payment, I head back to my Facebook Business app and set up the next appointment.

You can also set up your Facebook Business app to automatically send your client a reminder the day before your scooping appointment.

This goes back to our focus on the Customer Experience and maintaining proactive communication as long as it does not diminish the quality of your service.

These concepts may be simple, but think back
to a time when you had a rude cashier or agent on the phone and they made you feel some type of way.

Why do you think Amazon’s Mission Statement
says that they aim to be Earth’s most customer centric company?

Because of their obsession of the Customer
Experience, they made everything in the world available to you with just their “1 click buy” functionality and set the standard of what to expect from any business.

Now I’m not saying you will become the Amazon
of Poop Scooping, even though that would be both equally interesting and terrifying.

How do you plan on improving your Customer
Experience?

Let me know in the comments below because
when you focus on the customer experience your business provides to all of your clients, it will lead you to more success and you can potentially be one of the best Pet Waste Removal Businesses in your town and state.

And what can help you be the best business
possible?

By clicking the next blog where I share more of my strategies in being a small business owner.

And I’ll see you on the next scoop!

And As Always, Acknowledge The Now. Bye!