How workforce management software can help pest control companies
June 10, 2022The pest management industry can be profitable yet difficult to manage. Due to fierce competition, it is often difficult for pest control companies to acquire and maintain a loyal customer base.
What they can do to overcome this problem is to look at ways to improve their efficiency besides lowering pricing. By using pest control management software, companies can compete on price without sacrificing service quality or cutting costs.
Here’s how pest control workforce management software can help your company save time and money, and increase productivity.
What is pest control workforce management software?
Pest control business software is a form of field service management software created exclusively for pest treatment companies. Its goal is to help you focus on the big picture instead of the tiny details by organising job data and optimising daily operations.
Pest control software features:
Some pest control software features can make a significant difference for your company, regardless of its size. Here are a few examples:
Scheduling automation & convenience:
The capability to schedule technicians’ jobs in real-time is one of the most important advantages of pest control software. Having essential features to schedule jobs quickly and efficiently, pest control management software makes up the backbone of efficient company operations.
Scheduling can be automated using pest control software, which saves pest control companies plenty of time. Being able to make changes quickly to existing schedules also enables companies to respond in minimum time to sudden job requests and reassign the staff available for the jobs.
Fast team dispatch:
It’s one thing to schedule jobs, but it’s another to ensure your technicians are working on them efficiently. Have you ever wondered where your staff are at any given time? With pest control management software, your team leads can track staff locations in real-time and instantly view their status.
You can find the closest staff to a job site and dispatch them for the job, and also assign tasks depending on your staff’s availability, skill set and job location. This makes job dispatch convenient and easy, while allowing you to take control of your business.
Resource tracking:
Pest control tools are essential to companies in the pest control business; hence it is good practice to keep track of the tools in your inventory.
Pest control management software lets you categorise your tools and monitor where they are stored, used, and returned to inventory after usage, eliminating loss and distribution of chemicals and tools. It ensures that your staff will have the necessary equipment and resources for different types of work at all times, saving you time and money on last-minute purchases and orders.
Management of multiple locations:
The ability to manage many locations from a single platform is arguably one of the most useful features of pest control software. It is extremely time-savvy as you will be able to deploy several teams to various job locations in just a few clicks and provide clients with prompt and perfect service.
All work orders and their status can also be viewed from a consolidated dashboard.
Managers can monitor downtime, bottlenecks, and other problems and intervene as needed. They will also know which jobs are of high priority and if they require follow-ups.
Job status & performance tracking:
The inspection process is important as pest control staff need to quickly and accurately identify the pest type and treatment needed. Pest control management software is ideal in this case as it gives your staff a clear picture of the entire pest control process while enabling them to assess and analyse data, and keep track of job records.
Companies can quickly assign treatment for infested areas and also verify that it is done correctly with no loose ends. They can use filters to narrow down data and examine jobs as they please, acquire visual photo evidence instantly, evaluate recent work activity, schedule follow-ups, and even add special instructions if necessary. By evaluating past service visits and treatments, they can also easily plan for routine pest control treatments. Moreover, having a simple visual interface to coordinate work will enable inspectors to stay organised and work more efficiently.
Benefits of pest control management software:
Monitor pest control activity with ease:
Technology is becoming increasingly inter-connected, meaning it is now possible for pest control software to be launched from mobile apps and be used to connect to and manage pest control sensors on the ground.
Being able to oversee pest control data from your mobile phone offers a huge benefit as your team can detect pest activity without having to inspect each device individually. They will simply need to check the devices that report signs of activity in the app to verify the presence of pests, instead of having to check every single device for pest detection.
Increase convenience across processes:
In terms of the user experience, the best pest control software is an “everything in a package” solution. That is because pest control management that can integrate with ERP software will enable convenience for a lot of things – planning, order management, invoicing, and accounts recording.
Invoice and payment information from work orders can be instantly uploaded to the accounting portal from the pest control management system, allowing accounting and payroll to be completed more quickly. Hence, the whole procedure gets more precise and saves the company on labour costs.
Improve service response time:
Assigning a one-time or recurring job to your staff is easy if you are using a pest control management system. It will also give you a complete overview of all your work orders and let you know when your staff are available for new assignments. As a result, pest control requests can be taken up more quickly without losing customers to poor response time.
The convenience of data accessibility via mobile will also allow your staff to attend to client needs and address issues with minimal downtime.
Optimise resources and manpower:
Pest control software is equipped with data analytics features which can help your staff understand how best to plan their pest control van dispatch, inventory distribution, job schedules and van routes.
Being able to generate productivity charts and track resource and manpower utilisation will allow them to monitor monthly and quarterly performance results in greater detail, and also plan their resources confidently in advance.
Eliminate paperwork by going digital:
Gone are the days when the best practice in the industry would be to conduct operations using paper forms, disconnected excel worksheets, or outdated and incompatible software. Compared to traditional processes, the ability to send and receive data digitally in seconds is infinitely faster with less margin for errors.
By switching to digital forms, you can keep track of everything from work orders to inventory usage and report forms in one place. There is also no need to manually enter data or to go through additional hassle simply to retrieve data.
Conclusion:
The ability to respond quickly to pest control requests and ensure quality treatments are two of the most critical aspects in running a successful pest control business. Pest control management software is an excellent tool to have because it equips pest control companies with these two capabilities, and so much more.
At V3 Smart Technologies, we are experienced in working with pest control companies to provide what they need to remain competitive in their industry. We focus on ease of use plus reliable functionality in our pest control management software. Let us know if we can help.