Massachusetts Animal Removal Blog|BatGuys Wildlife Removal LLC

We often use text messaging to communicate between ourselves while working in the field. When this first started a couple years ago I couldn’t help but feel like a teenager doing it but at the same time I found it very effective. We use it mainly for simple messages that aren’t worth a phone call. Things like “bring me a coffee”, “got bit by a squirrel, bring bandaids”, “this customer is a lunatic, he locked me inside his attic” and things of that nature.

Two weeks ago Mike was working on a house in Upton Ma. The town of Upton is the worst town in our area for cell phone reception. In 90% of the town you can’t get a shred of reception. While he was working on this house he couldn’t make or receive any calls on his phone. However he did have just enough reception to send and recieve text messages.

I had sent him a text message asking him if hehad called his 3pm appointment to let the woman know that he was going to be15 minutes late. He told me that he forgot to call her before he lost reception but don’t worry because “I sent her a text message”. I had to laugh, I said “you did what? you sent a customer who we haven’t even met a text message?” He simply said that he had no choice.  I asked him how she reacted to receiving a text message from the animal removal guy and he said that she responded to the text message, thanked him for contacting her and never mentioned it again.

At first I thought sending a customer a text message was a bit unprofessional but I guess not.The customer didn’t mind at all and all was well. With that said we’re not going to make a habit out of sending text messages to our customers but it’s nice to know that we can if we have to. I just thought it was funny how the customer wasn’t surprised or taken back by it at all.

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com

This past week we switched phone companies at our office. This may sound simple but it turned out to be quite a project. Trying to coordinate the switching of phone numbers from one company to another was very frustrating. It took about 40 phone calls, 3 dozen emails and even a few faxes. As a result the phone system at our office was down for Thursday afternoon, all day Friday and all day Saturday as well. If you called during that time you either got a busy signal or a “this number is not in service” message. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. As of right now all our phones are back up and running.

In the field we’re seeing very large colonies of bats in the last few weeks. We’re also seeing juvenile bats in several different stages of development. This presents a very tricky situation. You must proceed with caution when doing any type of bat removal service this time of year. Being able to detect the prescence of a maternal bat colony inside of a structure is a skill that very few people have.

Calls for raccoons have started to dwindle as this year’s juvenile coons are now very large and traveling on their own. Just last week I found myself chasing 4 juvenile raccoons in a 110 degree attic.

I’ve also been training for this year’s Pann Mass Challenge. I haven’t had much time to ride but I have been running or doing some type of cardio just about every day. I did 70 miles on my road bike last weekend and felt really good. I’m planning on doing 4-5 more training rides on my road bike and i’m not worried about being physically ready for the ride. However with the recession and our country’s current economic crisis i’m finding that fundraising has been harder than in year’s past. I’m not doing very well to date and could really use some support. If you are able to put a few doallars towards a very worthy cause you can donate here - BatGuys 2009 PMC

Matt Grady

www.BatGuys.com