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)

International bed bugs week – South Africa – Cape Town 2 is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

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)

International bed bug week – South Africa – Cape Town is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

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

International bed bug week – South Africa – Johannesburg is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

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)

Spain – International bed bug week – day 7 is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

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)

Ireland – International bed bug week – day 6 is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

Well just finished first presentation day of week 2 in Dublin.

I have to say that this was probably the best session yet – not sure whether this was because it was in English, we are getting better at delivering what hits the hot buttons, or whether it is just a huge issue in Ireland and therefore stimulates a lot of emotion.

Format pretty much as described previously. Ken deputised admirably in Mike’s absence and Colm did a solid job with the technical story. We had about 35 people from predominantly hotel and hospitality, the health & safety executive from all around Ireland, and a couple of UK customers.

Lots of interest throughout the presentations but what crowned the day was a Q&A session that lasted over an hour with several delegates clearly staying after hours to discuss their issues. This served to demonstrate that hotel groups are still naïve about bed bugs and are also up for us to educate them in a variety of ways. I suspect that is something that regional managers may want to sit upon as it is a clear need from our customers. It will be interesting to morrow to see how Mike and team take and implement the framework developed by Phil, Randolph etc.

I sat with some customers for dinner and they were extolling our virtues and how much they had learnt and discussed if we could find a way of helping them to communicate to their Board how big an issue this was in their hotels; Alan was disappointed that we did not run a session in London and no doubt will be coming back to ask for this to happen in the UK.

Listening to and reflecting on the hotel people talk – I think there are probably also a couple of refinements we should build into our models

• The complexity of  different types of rooms came up again (this time from the hotels – they acknowledged that different rooms were clearly of a more complex design and implicitly accepted that there should be a higher charge for these).
• After an ‘all clear has been issued in an infested place – we should use this as an opportunity to conduct more follow ups to ensure that whatever treatment we have used has been genuinely effective.
• One customer was comfortable (indeed this is their declared policy) with the idea of 5 visits over a three month period after an intervention for treating bed bugs and pay accordingly. They acknowledge that this is belt and braces but this is two more visits that we would traditionally anticipate for a bed bug contract – something for us to think about for commercial models.
• A lot of interest in receiving training on the ‘crisis management side’ of handing bed bugs and how to interact with customers when a discovery is found.
• An emphasis of what our technicians can do (inspections behind headboards, under bed, wall floor junctions etc) vs. what they could realistically expect house keeping staff to do.
  We need a discussion of how to wean customers off ‘preventative spraying’ (which does not offer any real technical benefit) and move to the proactive inspection model. Phill you may want to pick this up with Ireland. Similarly Alain in France.

And finally – we have had a very good day with the media, in fact Mike felt that the positive PR that has come out of this session has more than justified the expenditure. We have done interviews with the Irish Times (anticipate publication in the Health supplement on Thursday) and a national radio interview for Sean Moncrieff’s News talk programme.

Some interesting statistics from the end of last week (thanks Mal) – In a week when world economies were on the brink, Rentokil’s Bed Bug Week was the most read article on the Guardian.co.uk website (122,000 UK readers). It beat ‘Israel asking for the green light from the US to bomb Iran’ – by over 20,000 readers!

We also got a mention that this on Radio 4’s News Quiz on Friday night / Saturday lunchtime.

More soon

Pete

(Back to Day 4)

Ireland – International bed bug week – day 5 is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

Very good day today running a workshop with sales and service in Milan (about 45 people in all). Only difference from yesterday was that we went into a lot more technical detail and Riccardo presented the commercial model and set some clear expectations of what has to be delivered over the next 3 years (i.e. double hotel market share in each year – some nice numbers presented).

Paula from marketing did a great job in providing simultaneous translation for colleagues and we had a very lively Q&A session with some excellent questions.

The contact framework designed by Randolph, Phill and the team stood its first test. The only refinement which could help us was a suggestion to build in a second dimension to the incremental pricing model that took account of room complexity (clutter, furnishings, bed complex, carpets).

All in all another good day. Next week we have Ireland and Spain – the PR machine in Ireland is working well and Colm Moore is due on national TV this afternoon.

Have a good weekend all. More reports soon.

Cheers

Pete

(Back to Day 3)

Italy – International bed bug week – day 4 is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

The road show hit Milan yesterday and Riccardo and team had done a great job in organising what must have looked to the guests an extremely professional set up with simultaneous translation and a compelling melange of internal and external competent speakers (not including myself here and yes I did keep to time!).

The whole event was chaired very ably by Riccardo with the panache of a Raiuno anchorman and about 35 people attended; these were predominantly from the hospitality industry and included a couple of big Italian chains whose names I carelessly forgot to note for this missive. Interestingly a major transport company also attended as they have been experiencing severe problems on their transport system.

Mike Potter worked his magic and then Christian and one of the service supervisors did a great job on showing the Rentokil system and a real war story in which a hotel had an issue and then one of their guests took our little friends home with similar consequences. We lost a little bit of momentum with an external presentation from a supplier (but I suspect Riccardo got the event paid for by having them sponsor this) and for future events I think it is important that we do not let outsiders dilute what is a great message which builds to a crescendo.

Mike Potter rescued the day with some well placed questions to the audience which stimulated some interesting questions including does freezing work, can disease be transmitted, and one guest admitted to having had a severe problem in his hotel and had tried to deal with it himself by starving them out (i.e. restricting access to guests); one of Riccardo’s sales managers had a very animated cup of coffee with this individual afterwards. What was clear was that this is still an immature market for us and once guests relaxed it became clear that this is a real problem Italy though people prefer not to talk about it.

An event like this which seeks to educate and inform really builds our credibility as the Experts in Pest Control and because we do not do the hard sell, people are more inclined to talk to us and the leads and opportunities come as a matter of course. After two events – I am becoming convinced this is a model framework which we might be able to use elsewhere. Today we embark on a workshop with the sales and service guys which should be interesting.

As our PR gets out there, I am receiving some interesting calls and getting no end of additional information being sent to me. Perhaps the most interesting two are:

• In Florida, dogs are being trained to be able to detect bed bugs. It is claimed that these animals can distinguish between live and dead bugs and (allegedly) can detect a few eggs in a theatre. Expensive to train and maintain but this is something that does appear to be gathering momentum.
• I had a call from a group in Silicon Valley who make portable analytical equipment for detecting drugs and munitions at border controls; they have seen some of the PR and believe that they could produce an electronic nose that would effectively do the same as a dog. Whilst I am a little sceptical on how this might work out commercially – its good to talk and we will be organising a video link once this event is over.

More news soon.

Cheers

Pete

(Back to Day 2)

Italy – International bed bug week – day 3 is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

I feel like Alistair Cooke or Alan Whicker preparing the day’s copy.

Today was a bit of a curate’s egg. The audience was disappointingly decimated by a last minute strike which prevented many of our guests getting to the venue. Having said that we did end up with some quality / big players and Tom also got a few customers in.

Mike Potter our American prof. put in a great show on the history of bed bugs and why the only way forward was to engage a leading PCO which knew what they were doing with a combination of proactive inspections and appropriate response depending on what was found.

Alain did a great job describing the Rentokil technical approach. One customer described some war stories and gave Rentokil a glowing testimony on how we had sorted their bed bug problem over a number of years. I concluded with a piece on Heat treatment.

The whole event was managed very professionally by Stephane (French marketing manager) and offered simultaneous translation for guests who required it.

New technology being used in France  stimulated some discussion with a customer effectively offering to be one of the first companies to field trial. It transpired that they have a significant issue with bed bugs and appear not to be happy with their current PCO.

One of the transport companies apparently have some significant issues with bed bugs on their rolling stock and union issues arising from staff who have been bitten by bed bugs whilst on company business in hotels. Both provide interesting leads which Julien will follow up on.

So not a bad day – we also effectively trialled the seminar and have learnt where we can make some improvements.

Finally, it looks as if the PR group are working overtime as we anticipate a radio interview next Monday with BBC local radio and interviews on Tuesday with the Irish Examiner and a national radio interview with The Macrieff show in Ireland.

Here is your very own correspondent signing off TTFN. Next report from Milan on Thursday.

Cheers

Pete

(Back to Day 1)

France – International bed bug week – day 2 is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

Hi guys,

Just a quick note on today’s activities in International bed bug week. Day 1 was a meeting of academics at the ETC. Representatives from the US, Denmark, UK and European Pest Control industries attended.

We also have had some coverage in The Guardian and BBC in the UK, and several papers in Ireland.

Today’s outcome – good rigorous ‘academic’ debate. Key points to emerge;

- total (unprompted) agreement that proactive inspections (to catch them early) is the only way to stand a good chance of controlling emerging bed bug populations. Good message to underpin our approach and apparently a number of other companies (in Ireland?) apparently doing this.

- proven resistance exists in every market represented and there was consensus that current actives will not touch populations in the future. ID’d the need for industry collaboration to assure effective future treatment, and perhaps the need to lobby regulators to permit use of materials other than pyrethroids within the arsenal. We could be positioned well here with heat.

- discussion of a view that it is this resistance (i.e. you can never completely get rid of an infestation) rather than global transportation that has resulted in the new resurgence as available actives have been removed (i.e. similar to MRSA mechanisms). Mixed views here and we discussed how this might be proven.

- led to a major discussion that they believe that we as one of the biggest PC companies are under utilising our information assets and could use our service reports to give significant  insights into infestations across wherever we operate; this if we could access them would give us competitive advantage..

- detection and its importance; new systems about to be launched in the US.

Conclusion – good day but need to reflect on how we get action from this.

More tomorrow – from France.

Cheers

Pete

International bed bug week is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog