PestBossPro Blog — Commercial Accounts

Fitting Commercial Pest Control Stops Into a Residential Route

Most small pest companies do not have a separate commercial crew. The same two or three trucks run quarterly homes, mosquito yards, one-time wasp jobs and a growing list of restaurants, offices and apartment complexes. Commercial stops come due every month instead of every three, many have time limits, and some need someone on site. Fitting them in without wrecking the residential route takes a little planning.

From the Walkthrough to the Route

Quoting starts with The Commercial Pest Control Walkthrough: Turning a Site Visit Into a Quote. Once the account is approved, it needs a place on the schedule, every month, for as long as you keep it.

In PestBossPro, commercial and residential work share the same Waiting List, the same dispatch board and the same tech app. There is no separate commercial calendar to keep in sync.

Everything Comes Due on One Map

Each location is set by minimum days between visits: 30 for monthly commercial service, 60 for bi-monthly, 90 for quarterly homes. When a location's time is up, it shows on the Waiting List, a live map and list of every account that has come due. Pins are colored by status: not due yet, due now, and overdue after a 7-day grace period.

Looking at the map, you will see commercial stops scattered among residential ones. A restaurant on the main road, three quarterly homes in the neighborhood behind it, an office park a mile away. Circle an area on the map to build a route from what is due there, and schedule it.

Because monthly accounts come due three times as often as quarterly ones, they will be on the map most of the time. That is useful: a commercial stop in an area is a reason to schedule the residential stops near it that same day.

Setting the Order

Commercial stops often have timing rules, which you have written in the access notes. Use those rules to set the route order on the dispatch board. Restaurants are the classic case, covered in Early-Morning Restaurant Pest Control Visits: Routing the Stops That Happen Before Opening. In general:

• Before-opening stops first. Restaurants, retail and anything that must be done before customers arrive.
• Stops that need a person in the middle. An apartment complex where maintenance meets you at 10, or a school where the custodian is free mid-morning.
• Flexible stops wherever they fit. Exterior-only office service, warehouse stations, residential homes.
• After-hours stops last. Offices that want interior service after 5.

Set the fixed stops by hand, then auto-route the rest Closest First or Furthest First from the shop. Adjust from there. The tech sees the same order on their phone.

Commercial-Only Days

Some companies prefer to run commercial work on its own day. Every Tuesday is restaurants and offices; the rest of the week is residential. That can work well, especially for early stops, because the tech knows Tuesday is an early start and plans for it.

Saved views on the dispatch board help either way. Save a view that shows commercial stops for the week, or one truck's schedule, so you can see what is coming without filtering every time. Tags on your commercial accounts make them easy to pick out.

Print route sheets if a tech or the client likes paper too. Some commercial clients like a printed list of the day's service at the front desk.

Keeping Monthly Visits on Time

Residential customers rarely notice if a quarterly visit is a week late. A restaurant on monthly service will notice. The Waiting List helps you stay on top of it: due-now pins need scheduling, and overdue pins past the grace period need it urgently.

A few habits keep commercial stops on time:

• Schedule commercial stops a week or two ahead, so the client can plan around them.
• When a stop is skipped, reschedule it right away rather than waiting for the next route in that area.
• Use automatic night-before reminders so the manager knows you are coming.
• Watch the tech GPS on the office map on busy days, so you can tell a manager how far away the tech is.

Balancing the Trucks

As commercial work grows, watch how it is spread across trucks. If one tech gets every early restaurant, they are starting early every day. If one truck gets every warehouse, their days get long. Spread commercial stops across trucks, or rotate who does the early commercial day, and use the time clock in the tech app to keep an eye on hours.

At some point, enough commercial work might justify a truck that does mostly commercial. When that day comes, nothing needs to change in the system: assign that truck the commercial stops and keep going. To see how routing fits with the rest of running commercial accounts, visit the PestBossPro commercial pest control software page.