When you zoom out and take a look at the way that your small or medium-sized pest control business (SMB) runs, it’s easy to see that efficiency plays a crucial role in determining your bottom line. If you’re not making the most of your resources with effective processes, you can’t expect to increase your revenue and maximize profits. For SMBs, communication is a key element when it comes to minimizing wasted time in order to operate more effectively.
Improving communication—both between your business and your customers and between members of your team—is a driving force behind the design of PestPac Lite’s Mobile Sketch feature. By changing the way your team captures and shares information both internally and with customers, PestPac Lite and Mobile Sketch allow you to save time on every service visit, enabling you to carry out your work more effectively than ever.
Sharing Data More Efficiently
Thanks to its mobile functionality, PestPac Lite allows owner-operators and technicians alike to enhance the way they access and document data in the field. While you’re on a service call, all of the data you need is in the palm of your hand. Schedules, customer profiles, and technician notes from past visits are all instantly accessible via PestPac Lite Mobile.
Better yet, the mobile app eliminates the need for technicians scribbling notes, handing them to your office staff, and expecting them to decipher handwriting and manually enter the new information into the system. Instead, they can simply add details into the app and have them instantly synced with the back office so that your whole team is kept informed. Sharing information in this way helps your team to provide excellent customer service every time, even if a technician is new to a particular customer’s property; access to past notes brings them up to speed in no time and ensures that the work is carried out properly the first time.
The same applies to inspection reports and termite forms, along with any other forms your locale requires you to complete. By providing access to these forms in the mobile app, PestPac gives your technicians the power to complete forms on site while the information is fresh in their minds, complete with photos, documents, and signatures. The result is fewer errors, less paperwork, less unnecessary repetition during your service visits, and a more efficient way to see jobs through from beginning to end.
The Power of Pictures
Mobile Sketch takes PestPac Lite’s mobile power and brings it to the next level by enabling your team to create custom sketches and diagrams in no time, giving them the ability to document, track, and share key information in real-time.
You can begin with a blank canvas, take a photograph, or use a satellite image of the property at hand to start your sketch. Then, a few quick taps allow you to add shapes, outlines, text, and shading to customize the image for the situation at hand. You can even drag and drop predefined objects like stairs, air conditioning units, trees, and more to customize the sketch for your needs.
This feature is invaluable for documenting the work performed, including areas of application and the materials applied using color-coded shading to designate what was done during the job. This information is stored within the order for future reference, which is invaluable for informing the team for the next visit, documenting the visit for the necessary forms, or sharing a visual of the job with the homeowner. The latter can be invaluable in building a connection with customers who often aren’t home when the work is carried out, giving them a visual reminder of your team’s good work. If a customer contacts your office with questions, it’s also easy to instantly pull up the sketch and address their concerns from an informed perspective.
The same functionality can be used to note what action should be taken on the next visit, keeping your team informed for the future. This takes the wasted time out of your next service visit, ensuring that your team can get down to business on the task at hand without spending unnecessary time double checking what was carried out last time.
Mobile Sketch can also be used to outline suggestions for a customer proposal on the spot. This gives your technicians an advantage when explaining a proposal, or even when outlining a possible up-sell to an existing customer. In seconds, they can draft up an image that explains the work that should be completed, quickly offering good, better, and best options for customers to consider. The tool even provides linear and square footage for outlined areas on satellite images, allowing you to offer more accurate estimates when outlining proposals.
