PestBossPro Blog — Pest Control Software

The Customer App in Pest Control Software: Live Route, Invoices and Service Requests

A lot of the calls a small pest company gets aren't new business. They're “when are you coming?”, “how much do I owe?”, “can you update my card?” and “do you do mosquitoes?” Every one of those is a call the owner takes from a truck or the office takes instead of doing something else. The customer app answers most of them before the phone rings.

The Other End of the Tech App

Everything the tech does in The Pest Control Tech App: What Your Technicians See on Their Phones shows up somewhere for the customer. When the tech starts the route, completes a stop or charges a card, the customer app reflects it.

Customers sign in to their own side of PestBossPro. They don't see your other customers or your business data, only their own account, their own properties and their own invoices.

Today's Route, Without the Call

On service day, the customer can see where they are on the route: “You're stop 12 of 20 — the tech is 5 stops away.” That one line replaces the most common call a pest company gets.

For a customer who needs to open a side gate, bring the dog in or move the car out of the garage for an interior treatment, knowing the tech is five stops away is far more useful than a four-hour window. It also cuts down on skips, because the yard is ready when the truck arrives.

Alerts the Customer Chooses

Not everyone wants the same texts. In the customer app, each customer picks their alerts:

• The night before — a reminder that service is tomorrow.
• When they're next — a heads-up that the tech is heading to them.
• When the tech arrives — so they know someone is on the property.

The customer controls it, so the office isn't fielding complaints about too many texts or too few. Texting is covered in more depth in Texting and Customer Alerts in Pest Control Software.

Requests and Sign-Ups

Existing customers often want more than their quarterly service. Mosquito season comes, ants show up in the kitchen, a wasp nest appears under the deck. In the customer app they can request service and sign up for services at the prices you've set, without a phone call.

A quarterly customer who adds a mosquito program from their phone in April is the easiest sale you'll make all year. The request lands in the office, and the work gets scheduled like any other job.

Invoices, Payments and Cards

The customer app shows the customer's invoices and lets them pay online. They can update their card on file themselves, which matters more than it sounds: an expired card on a quarterly auto-pay account is one of the most common reasons a payment fails. When the customer can fix it from their phone, the office doesn't have to call and collect card numbers.

For commercial customers on monthly billing, the monthly statement shows every location in one place.

Getting Customers to Use It

A customer app only helps if customers open it. The easiest moment to introduce it is right after sign-up, when the customer is paying attention. Mention it in the welcome message, and have the tech mention it at the first visit: “You can see when I'm coming and pay your invoice right from your phone.” Put the link in your text reminders and on invoices. Customers who use it once on service day, see their place on the route and skip the phone call, tend to keep using it. Over a season, more of the routine questions move from the phone to the app, and the office phone gets quieter. It is worth a short reminder at each quarterly visit until most of your regulars are on it.

Ratings and Referrals

Happy quarterly customers are the best source of new quarterly customers. The customer app lets them rate your service and refer friends and neighbors. A referral from someone on the same street also fits neatly into an existing route, which means more stops with less driving for the truck that already services that block.

None of this replaces a good tech at the door. It just takes the routine questions off the phone so the people in your company can spend their time on treatments and new accounts. For how the customer app fits with routing, records and billing, see the PestBossPro pest control software page.