BRIEFCASE-LARGE: The Massey Guarantee

When Harvey Massey purchased the former Walker Chemical and Exterminating Company in Orlando, Fla., in 1985, he saw a termite and pest control firm that had a core of solid service technicians and growth potential.

What the business didn’t have, Massey felt, was “the right culture and the right image.” So, he set about reinventing the company by purchasing new service vehicles, altering the business’s logo and color schemes on shirts and trucks, and redoubling efforts to instill core company values throughout his workforce.

“When I bought the company, which had been around since 1930, it had four offices and a good team of technicians,” says Massey, who has been in the pest management business for 45 years, spending long stints with Orkin and Terminix before becoming a chairman and CEO. “I replaced 68 vehicles in six months and changed the way our trucks and technicians looked. We established standards for the company and our goal of total customer satisfaction.”

Under Massey’s leadership, the company also built its values of teamwork, integrity and honesty. He made simple, concrete alterations. For example, Massey consolidated technician routes, which led to an increase in their income as well as enhanced health coverage and other benefits. “That’s why, to this day, we have a lot of the people who were with us when I bought the company,” Massey says.

It’s a well-laid plan that’s worked nicely. Massey Services has grown from those four offices in 1985 to 62 offices spread across the width and breadth of Florida, and even into Georgia and Louisiana. The firm has around 800 employees and a fleet of 700 vehicles. Twenty-three years ago, the company averaged $4 million in sales annually, but Massey Services is now on pace to break $80 million in 2008.
The company has undergone between 15 and 17 percent annual growth, and has moved up five spots in Lawn and Landscape’s Top 100 this year.

Harvey Massey, a straight shooter who talks with a decided Southern drawl, is adamant when he says that one of the driving forces behind the company’s continued success has been its dedication to customer service and satisfaction.

“When we launched a marketing campaign in the 1980s, we decided to offer the money-back guarantee,” Massey says. “People in the industry called me and asked if I’d lost my mind because this is a nickel and dime business, and we’ve been fighting that battle for years. But I felt that if you treat people the way you want to be treated, you shouldn’t have to worry. And if customers aren’t satisfied with what you do, they deserve to get their money back.”

The campaign brought in new customers. But it was how the effort was perceived by Massey Services’ team members that surprised management.

“It was internally that the money back guarantee had the biggest impact,” Massey says. “It was like turning on a light with the service technicians in terms of what they thought of themselves and the confidence we were displaying in them. It was one of the defining moments in our company history.”

Massey Services conducts intense screening of potential employees and was one of the first companies, Massey believes, to integrate drug testing into that process. There is also an intensive and ongoing education and training program for service technicians.

“Our training is more of a lifestyle,” says Adam Jones, vice president and director of quality assurance. “We don’t produce a product, per se. Our product is the people who work for us, and we invest money and time in that product by giving them the information they need to do their jobs properly. We also instill in our employees the understanding that there are no stupid questions and that they can come to us for answers.”

At the same time, Massey Services empowers its team members to make the calls in the field.

Says Jones, “Another mission for us is to have our people understand what the policy is for a specific situation. If they understand what it is and where the boundaries are, they will probably make the right choice. There is freedom in that. They know what our attitude is toward customer service and that the happier our customers are, the longer we keep them and the more profitable the company and its employees are.”

The company promises a detailed, customized written service plan for each customer and 24-hour service if a problem arises. Both a doctor of plant medicine and a board-certified entomologist are full-time staff members.

“Mr. Massey had the foresight to buy a business like this in Florida, a growth state that is hospitable for pests,” says Bud Brewer, president and CEO of Massey Communications. “We’re never going to win the battle, so we have that working for us. That being said, other companies have come along in this state and don’t have the growth numbers and consistency of growth that we have, or our employee retention rate. Just getting new customers isn’t enough. You can’t let them out the back door with poor service. The present customer is always more valuable than the ones you’re going after.”

About 75 percent of the company’s income is derived from residential customers. The remainder comes from commercial clients.

Another change came in 1990, when Massey says his company “got out of the pest control business and got into the pest prevention business.”

“We spent $40,000 changing the vehicles to read ‘Pest Prevention,’” he says. “We now pre-treat the homes being built by some of the largest developers and builders in the country.”

Water conservation and environmental safety are two increasingly important components of the business. “Water conservation is big everywhere,” Massey says. “Hundreds of gallons of water were being used in pesticide dilution and now we can use a couple of gallons of water to pre-treat a home. Honestly, I don’t care what product we use and who manufactures it as long as it’s safe for my team members to handle and safe for our customer’s homes and businesses.”

Offers Brewer, “You see fleets of trucks being painted green to take advantage of the trend toward environmentalism in the industry. We were green before green was cool. Back in 1995, we were invited to be a presenting sponsor of the Central Florida Earth Day Festival. We thought about it for a few days because we figured we might be ‘teed up.’ A pest prevention company being asked to present at such an event? But the woman who was running the festival was a customer for three years. She had come to understand that we were not interested in just putting out pesticides, but that we had an enormous amount of concern for the environment. I think we were on the tip of the spear for the entire industry in doing away with indiscriminate broadcasting of pesticides.”

Tangible evidence of that commitment came when Massey Services was twice recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its efforts, in addition to recent recognition from the Council for Sustainable Florida.

Much of Massey Services’ growth has been internal, Brewer says, although the company will consider expansion through acquisition if the right opportunity presents itself. In the past 23 years, the company’s growth has been 13 percent compounded per year, with organic growth accounting for 12 percent of the overall growth. The firm has doubled in size every five years, a fact that has not arrived by serendipity.

“Having that growth over a five- to six-year period is perfect for our organization,” Jones says. “It allows us to bring people into our company, steep them in our culture, raise them up right through the organization and put them in the position to be chomping at the bit and prepared to fly when we open a new office.”
Massey says controlled growth is key to his company’s present and future success. “We want to grow so we can create new opportunities for our employees. We have 56 offices in Florida, five in Atlanta and one in Baton Rouge, La. When we open a new office, we want to make sure we meet the demands of the marketplace. We need to know who and where our customers are, how we find them and what they expect from us. It’s not the same in all locations. You have to change your business model as you go because society changes. We have gone from monthly to quarterly to bimonthly service and we are always adjusting.”

Massey Services has been able to hold the line on its prices despite pressures placed on its operating budget by rising fuel costs, foreclosures and a slowdown in new home construction.

“Although gas and oil prices are up 43 percent, our usage rate is up only 18 percent,” Massey says. “We have done a better job of route organization, getting people to service customers on the same street the same day.”

Adds Jones, “One of the benefits of retaining and adding new customers is that we’re able to keep prices pretty static for existing customers. We haven’t had to pass the rising operational costs on to our customers and we won’t as long as we can maintain our operational profitability.”

For Harvey Massey, it all goes back to having good team members and strong ethics.

“I recently saw one of our posters in our training room and it said that when someone leaves our company for whatever reason, we want them to say that while they were here, they worked hard, learned a lot, made a lot of friends and never once questioned our integrity. I think that says a lot about who we are as a company.”

John Torsiello is a freelance writer living in Torrington, Ct. He has written extensively on turf issues for Golf Course Industry magazine and  other national and regional publications.