There are many ways a pest problem could affect your business, from lower employee morale, to profit loss, to legal action. The most significant effect pest problems could have in your business is in the form of negative word-of-mouth publicity. In this age of digital technology, negative customer experience could give a wrong impression of your business. Unfortunately, it is not merely the customer creating a scene or spreading a bad word against your business.
It is the networking sites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and Instagram posts that could end up in the local news that make it a lot worse. The most damning part of it is that these are written accounts that last for a long period of time and will be linked to your business name online. In addition to a temporary or permanent closure, pest infestations could cause extra and ongoing problems for businesses if you have not carefully taken adequate control measures. Here are some of the problems that pest infestation could cause your business.
Damage to your reputation
As mentioned earlier, the influence of social media outlets to the world today could be detrimental to your business if your business’s bad image has become a trending online topic, especially if it is about a pest infestation. Any business that experienced public trial because of pest control issues could eventually find their image tarnished to the core and could find it very difficult to restore. Even if you have already managed to handle the situation, the effect of the online criticism and the damage to your reputation could be long-lasting and extremely difficult to recover from. To prevent this from happening, you can hire professional pest control services like Moxie Pest Control to take care of these things for you.
Potential health hazards
Customers need not directly see a rodent or an insect crawling inside your store for any problem to arise. Most often, pests are carriers of various germs and bacteria that cause diseases and serious health issues. Urine and droppings of birds, rodents, and cockroaches could all create health risks. This includes hantavirus and salmonella that could cause fatal health problems. Additionally, urine and droppings not only give off a nasty smell but could also cause a slipping hazard. But with the right prevention measures, you can get rid of this issue for good.
Damage to merchandise and property
Pests are like wild animals that live by scavenging and scrounging food and materials that they found lying around. Rodents chew things because of their incisor teeth that continuously grow around five inches every year through their lifespans. Mice and rats can chew on metal, concrete, wood, plastic and even electrical wiring. They could also contaminate and eat anything that they could get their teeth on.
Loss of business
Like a domino effect, a disappointed customer who has spread a negative incident or experience about your business because of pest infestation could affect the customers’ perceptions and drive them away. Since customers are the top priority in every business, retention of customers is still the most important factor that affects the sales performance of the business.
Fall of revenue
Loss of business also means a decrease in revenue. When clients and patrons are aware of your business’s pest problems, they, most likely, will no longer do business with you or will buy the products somewhere else. Most often, these customers are less likely to utilize your business for the products and services that it offers.
Shutting down the business
There are several cases where the store closed because of pest infestation. In case the business reopens, it would be very hard to rebrand or regain customer loyalty. If the problem goes on and becomes regular, any business could close their doors forever.
Pests and pest infestation could cause a massive problem in your business if left unchecked and unprotected. The only solution is to have pest control experts look at the place so they could identify the issues and recommend solutions. If this is the case, it is best that you seek the help of a professional pest control expert to handle the issue.
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by Matheus Queiroz. The photo “mouse loves Starbucks” has been taken by Mert Guller.
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