PestBossPro Blog — Tech App

Where Activity Was Seen: Service Notes That Make the Next Pest Control Visit Better

A quarterly pest control account is really one long conversation with the house. Each visit, the technician learns something: ants trail in at the kitchen slider, wasps come back to the same eave every spring, the crawlspace vent screen is torn. If that knowledge leaves with the technician, the next visit starts from zero. Service notes keep it with the house.

Service Notes vs. Access Notes

Access notes, covered in Gate Codes, Pets and Locked Sheds: Access Notes in the Pest Control Tech App, tell the technician how to get onto the property. Service notes tell them what to do once they are there.

In the PestBossPro tech app, both kinds of notes show on the stop card under the address. Notes that belong to the property stay on the address and show every visit. Notes about today's work go on the stop and become part of the history the next technician can read.

What Belongs in an Activity Note

The most useful service note says where the activity was, what it was, and what the technician did about it. Vague notes like “some ants” do not help anyone. Specific notes do:

• “Odorous house ants trailing along the kitchen slider threshold and under the sink. Treated exterior at the slider and baited under sink.”
• “Paper wasp nests, two, under the back eave above the patio. Removed and treated.”
• “Rodent droppings along the garage back wall behind the shelving. Station 3 bait fully consumed.”
• “Spider activity heavy at the front porch light fixtures. De-webbed and treated.”

Note what you did not find, too. “No ant activity at the slider this visit” tells the next technician the treatment is working, and it gives the customer good news to hear.

Each one tells the next technician where to look first. That turns a routine visit into a targeted one, and the customer notices.

Conducive Conditions

Good pest control technicians point out the things that invite pests back. Writing them down gives the office something to follow up on and protects the company when the customer asks why the ants keep coming:

• Moisture. “Downspout on the north corner drains against the foundation. Told customer.”
• Vegetation. “Shrubs touching siding along the east side, mulch piled against the slab.”
• Firewood. “Firewood stacked against the back wall of the house.”
• Entry points. “Gap under the garage door weatherstrip, about a finger wide.”
• Food and trash. “Pet food bowls left out on the patio overnight.”

Pair the note with a photo. A picture of the downspout draining onto the foundation is worth more to the customer than any explanation. Photo habits are covered in Photographing Entry Points So the Pest Control Customer Sees the Problem Too.

Customer Requests

Customers mention things at the door: “We saw a scorpion in the bathroom last week,” or “Can you spray the shed too?” Those belong in the notes, not in the technician's memory.

Some requests are one-time and go on today's stop. Others are standing preferences and belong on the address, so every future technician sees them:

• “Customer wants the shed included every visit.”
• “No treatment in the vegetable garden beds, west side.”
• “Customer prefers interior only when she's home. Call before.”

If a request means more work than the plan covers, the technician notes it and the office prices it from your service list, so the invoice matches the work.

Writing Notes Fast

Technicians will not write paragraphs on a phone in a hot back yard, and they should not have to. A few habits keep notes short and useful:

• Where, what, done. Location, pest, action. “Garage NE corner, mice, set station 4.”
• Use the same words for the same places. “Kitchen slider” every time, not “back door” one visit and “patio door” the next.
• Number bait stations. So a note can say “station 3” and mean the same one every quarter.
• Use voice typing. Most phones let you dictate into a text box, which is faster than thumbs with gloves.

Notes Make Any Tech Able to Run Any Route

The real payoff of good service notes is that a house stops depending on one technician. When the regular technician is out sick or moves to a new route, the replacement reads the notes and knows where the activity was, what was done, and what the customer cares about. The customer gets the same service either way.

The next article covers reading those notes from earlier visits: Reading Past Service Notes in the Pest Control App Before You Get Out of the Truck. To see how service notes fit with everything else on the technician's phone, visit the PestBossPro pest control app page.