deBugged

Well hello, good morning, and welcome to what will be my final posting of this tour.

Just when you thought things could not get better…they did with a day that certainly matched if not surpassed our best effort in Europe. Prof Mike Potter was kept busy from about 7 – 10am with a series of about 6 press interviews and one lengthy piece to camera to round off what has been probably our most successful public awareness campaign to date. We have clearly had quite remarkable reach – for example when asked by a shop-keeper ‘what brings you to South Africa?’ and the answer ‘a seminar on bed bugs’ was given – the questioner immediately responded ‘hey that was on TV this morning and in my newspaper’ – certainly heightened public awareness on both this pest and indeed the role Rentokil has played in providing the education on this now very public pest.

At  the seminar we had about 40 attendees from very diverse backgrounds including hospitality management (both big and medium sized brands), house keepers, public health workers, bed manufacturers, high end hotel auditors, and …wait for it… a representative of the local operational organisers of the FIFA world cup. This was perhaps the most engaged audience we have had anywhere in the world with all speakers really on form. The Prof did his usual ice breakers and warm up and then Pam and Terry played a blinder with the audience gasping in astonished concern when they heard the facts on bedbug growth around the world and in South Africa in particular. Terry then had them roaring with laughter at his Robbie Williams and Johnny Cash impressions (don’t ask!). By the time I got on to conclude, the audience was so warmed up it was the first time (except at the PC Board) where I have been heckled before I started speaking (by a bunch of rowdy but very much engaged housekeepers from a big brand hotel chain). As you might expect the Q&A was very lively and extended to almost an hour with all of the usual questions which then carried on over the lunch table.

A couple of very interesting things to emerge. 

1. A detailed side bar conversation with the local government official representing the local organising committee of the World Cup highlighted some real issues and concerns about bed bugs in the large number of small B&B establishments which are being created to cater for the number of visitors to South Africa during the cup. 

2. The inspector of high end hotels for Africa, Australia, and the US spent some time grilling me on the symptoms of bed bug bites. It transpired that she had almost certainly been bitten at one of the highest class hotels in Cape Town and this in her mind served to highlight that the purpose of the seminar was just and the content about growing issues true – she will be spreading this view to her editors. 

Well that’s about it; the rest of my week will be spent on much more mundane matters as technician assessment, the job content of QA managers (including showing them the QA forms I pinched from John’s team last week – yes you can take the man from Liverpool but not etc etc)  and finally discussions on H&S and implementing procurement savings. 

I think we have had a really successful week laying some great foundations with a great team. Until the next time – this is your foreign correspondent signing off one last time. 

TTFN.
Pete

(Back to  South Africa IBBW day 2)

(Go to International Bed Bug Week Europe Day 1)

Well good evening team; hopefully catching you sipping your Ovaltine just before lights out.

Yes it was another successful day on the bed bug trail with our Cape Town Branch (Sales and Service) in South Africa. In less than three days we are really motoring and the media have engaged enthusiastically to discuss all of the perils and potential impact of this little bloodsucker on South African society and more importantly upon some of the big forthcoming sporting events.

Mike Potter did a further 6 radio interviews today including the prime time radio equivalent of the Today programme and believe it or not a radio phone in! More TV and radio planned for tomorrow morning and there should be lead stories in the Citizen and Daily News. It is amazing to see a country move from scepticism to conviction – a real lesson for us Europeans.

The rest of the day was spent with the Capetown branch on training and developing the proactive offer. I have to say we have a really impressive bunch of service managers, QA and sales managers who engaged, challenged and laughed through the day.

What was really great was that the techies were all highly experienced at bed bug jobs and so immediately benefited from getting into greater depth on the biological control side of bedbugs (more so than anywhere else we have visited so far). Moreover we got into a real debate on the importance of ensuring that all technicians were trained to a high level in this pest as it is clearly them who have the major interactions with the customers and can ultimately offer the most reassurance as our men and ladies on the ground. The service supervisors really bought into this as a major element of their role and emphasised that they could only do this properly if they could get more time in the field with their techs; it is interesting to reflect that this seems to be a consistent message that is coming from a number of different businesses across the world.

I think this session was one of the most vibrant sessions we have been in so far and I am really excited about how this great South African team will engage and interact with what promises to be a good turn out of customers tomorrow.

More bedtime stories from the front line this time tomorrow. (Ed: post was received on time, just not posted immediately.)

Night Night, sleep tight don’t let the …….you know the rest.

Pete

(Back to South Africa IBBW day 1)

Following the success of the first International bed bug week, Dr. Peter Whittall, our Divisional Technical Director, continues with nightly blog posts from the South Africa bed bug week lectures.

Greetings to all,

Yes – just when you thought it was safe to vacation – the bed bug blog is back. It’s the same but different (?). This time we are in the southern hemisphere travelling across the lovely African continent to South Africa. Just concluded two days in Johannesburg and at time of writing am on a plane to Cape Town – so what has your intrepid reporter been up to?

Well we have just carried on, almost seamlessly, where we left off in October and the possibilities for Bed bugs on this continent look just as big and beautiful as they did in Europe if not better! The general public is not really aware but the hoteliers are and in general do not like to broad cast the undoubted issued that they have.

Our first day was spent with Service and sales management teams (about 20 people) going through the new proactive offer and bringing them up to speed on the best reactive practices. It was the same with Mike Potter – he had some new shock horror pictures and Randolph did a great job trying showing our colleagues how important training, inspections and risk assessments are. It was great to see the South African team so engaged; what a team Gavin is running.

So today was launch day with customers. Yes Pam learned from all of the great work done in Ireland and Spain and managed a PR extravaganza. Mike Potter opened up on breakfast TV (SABC) and by lunch time had given two radio interviews with another planned this evening and two for tomorrow morning. The gist of the questioning was “why should we be worried about bed bugs – its just another of God’s little creatures so why not leave well alone?”. Well guys I am happy to report that Mike nailed it something along the lines… “if South Africa wants to allow its countryman and visitors to be prayed upon by a blood sucking parasite then I guess that is OK”. Surprisingly it was shortly after this, that the request for interviews came in pretty fast – don’t understand that but no doubt Mal will coach me on this.

The customer event went well today. We had an audience of about 40 people and yes some of them (many of them) were customers; they came predominantly from the hospitality sector with big well known brands being represented and some smaller local fine establishments. As usual the Prof worked his magic with the whole of the front row scratching before the first 5 minutes had concluded. Pam (SA Marketing Manager) did a great job putting the global epidemic into South African proportions and showed some great data on South African trends and the likely scope of impact of any epidemic on local people in the light of 20/20 cricket, the Lions Tour, and of course the 2010 world cup.

Terry did a great job on the techie bits and we ran a Q&A session for approaching an hour. People came from the view point ‘well I have never had bed bugs in my current establishment but how would you approach this hypothetical situation’? We ended up answering questions on:
• How vacuuming should not be used as a control method
• The lack of effectiveness of cold methods (especially cryonite) in establishing control
• Encasing mattresses and how to minimise the spread of infestations.
• Why the only real way to protect their business was through proactive inspection, and staff training
• Could we train housekeepers and did the resources to do this exist (yes of course they do…)
• How to dispose of infected materials.

It really was a great session and we certainly reached the dizzy heights of audience engagement we achieved in Spain and Ireland. I am told that we can expect an even more lively audience when the road show arrives in Cape Town; bring it on I say.

I think all the learning we had from the first four seminars was exploited well by the South African team. This overall model for communicating to our customers and the public is really robust, something should be used wider in our business. Something to be refined further – a bit more science and statistics on the cube treatment method.

Feedback from the sales team after the event was extremely positive with a number of customers already asking for us to come and tell them more. So on the whole not a bad days work and a great team effort.

Time for a glass of mineral water, so more tomorrow.

Cheers all
Pete

Hi Folks,

Well just when you thought that it couldn’t get any better it got even better!!!

 Spain managed to whip up an audience of over 60 people (and yes the vast majority were customers) – well done Jesus and Jacinto.

Format the same as before – it really is quite spooky to see the same charts day after day but always in a different language. The high number of customers led to a much more active Q&A and we got even better insight into what was at the top of customer’s concerns.

- there were the usual questions about where do bugs come from, how often do they feed, is there risk of disease transmission and then the meeting took a very interesting turn…

- it started with a question about how long bites might remain visible and then took off down the line about liabilities. It is clear in Spain that there is a major concern about the potential for litigation etc.

We then went off on a whole track of crisis management which really expanded our conceptual thinking around training customers. Original thoughts were all about training house keepers and maintenance folk on what to look for so they became part of an early warning process. What emerged today was a clear signal that hotels want a blow by blow account and process of how to cope with every element of what they see as a bed bug crisis including how to deal / reassure customers (FAQ’s, discussion on compensation, how to minimise spread, specific things to do and say etc etc.

We heard stories about how other PCO’s had recommended to destroy everything which clearly cost a lot in replacement fittings – all of which could have been saved with a little thought; this again showed a lot of ignorance out there and the discussion really did position us as professional experts.

Some interesting discussions on time to allow re-occupation of rooms and when to conduct follow up treatments.

PR front went well with Mike Potter and I giving an interview to Plagas Urbanus – a Spanish Pest Control magazine, and Jesus giving a live radio interview. Two more interviews planned for tomorrow.

Closing thought tonight originated from Randolph as we left the bar this evening (yes Caroline the bar) – 2010 world Cup is in South Africa – this could be a great programme for SA in 2009 to control existing infestations and to prepare for the likely onslaught of new ones with the sudden influx of visitors.

International bed bug week concludes tomorrow – as will these nightly blogs; thank goodness I hear you say.

Buenas Noches  from Madrid.

Peter Whittall

(Back to Day 6)

(Read from Day 1)

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

(Back to Day 5)