Western Pest Services has been helping homeowners in the Mid-Atlantic region get rid of their unwanted guests since 1928. A subsidiary of Rollins, Inc., the largest pest control company in the United States, Western has a reputation for providing highly effective pest control services with a high level of customer satisfaction.
Nearly 100 years since its foundation, Western Pest Services remains a unified company. Its company culture and positioning emphasize small company values like customer service and reliability. These values appear to have borne fruit: going by online reviews, Western has one of the best track records for customer satisfaction of all the companies we’ve looked at, while still offering a menu of services (including ventilation and insulation help) that put it in the same league as its better-known competitors. In addition, it has a demonstrated commitment to technician training and provides environmentally friendly treatment options, making it a solid choice on its home turf in the Mid-Atlantic region.
In business for nearly 100 years.
Limited service area, even in the states it covers.
Western Pest Services offers protection from a large range of common pests, including:
Western’s website offers a wealth of information about pests and how they enter homes and affect lives. The site also offers suggestions on how to better defend your home against these creatures and how to identify if they have already made their way inside.
Western offers free initial pest inspections intended to help you and your technician better understand the nature of the pests in your home.
In addition to a free inspection, Western also has a satisfaction guarantee policy where they will continue to come back until the job is done. It’s part of their service agreement plan and the website is vague on how it works, so potential customers should get the full details before signing up.
Western Pest Services uses an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system, an incredibly effective system for eliminating pests over the long term by focusing on prevention and targeted application of pesticides. This is an industry standard approach these days, but not one that has been consistently adopted by smaller companies like Western.
We give Western high marks for its training regimen. Technicians are taught about pest control and extermination through a series of training exercises focused on expertise and safety when working with the pest treatments. Western also employs entomologists to help technicians better understand the nature of insects and how they thrive in homes. Western has also received the QualityPro certification, an award that only 3% of American pest control companies receive.
The company also offers moisture control, crawl space ventilation, and insulation services, all of which are important parts of keeping pests out of your home.
For a regional company, Western stands out for its services offered.
Western’s guarantee
A Word About Reviews
It can be difficult to judge pest control companies using online reviews: negative reviews tend to outnumber positive reviews for all companies. But looking at negative and positive reviews can give consumers some idea of the trends in a company’s performance.
Western Pest Services has relatively few reviews online, a fact that fits their profile as a smaller regional company. What reviews there are, however, make it clear that Western Pest Services are prompt, professional, and get the job done.
Western promises a 24-hour guaranteed response time – meaning they will respond to your call for pest control help within 24 hours. Customers also reported that Western technicians were on time, communicative, and knowledgeable. Many said their technicians took extra time to explain everything that was happening and go over all of the possible solutions for pest control problems and answer any questions.
As you might expect, you will find a large number of positive reviews on the customer’s website. You will find some complaints on Yelp and Google, but they are generally very specific and are often addressed by the company directly.
There were very few complaints available that described situations in which Western needed to come to the house for a re-treatment. On the contrary: there were many reviews from loyal customers who have been using the service for years without any customer service problems.
By and large, “thorough” was one of the most common words used to describe Western Pest Services. Many of the reviewers were floored by how quickly the company was able to get rid of the pests and how meticulous the technicians were in doing so.
This is a class act organization in a business that is very rough around the edges. They run a tight ship and completely rid you of ANY pest pressures.
It seems like the company does a great job of delivering on their service.
As sometimes happens with smaller companies, customer satisfaction had to be gauged from a fairly limited number of reviews.
Cost is a hard variable to measure since every house and pest is different, but we assess companies based on criteria that can be standardized across the industry, gauging mostly whether they give consumers the ability to shop around and control costs.
As mentioned above, Western offers a free in-home inspection for homeowners considering its pest control service, a practice that allows technicians to actually see the home and properly assess the amount of work that needs to be done. It also gives homeowners a more realistic quote. Not all larger companies offer this courtesy.
Western offers free follow-up inspections and re-treatments on their annual plan. These free follow ups are standard across the industry and are important protections for consumers in case a treatment fails or is not entirely effective.
Western Pest Services has both a yearly contract and a single-service option, though they push their yearly contract very hard and, in some cases, require that it be bought. The yearly contract, called the Home Protection Plan (HPP), protects you from a large number of pests, includes seasonal visits from technicians, and free emergency visits in between scheduled visits.
Follow-up inspections are provided at no the cost, and they’ll provide free re-treatments until effective.
The company tries to get consumers to take on annual contracts, which can be very confining.
