PestBossPro Blog — Tech App

Skipping a Pest Control Stop the Right Way: Rain, Wind, Locked Gates and No One Home

Every pest control technician skips stops. The weather turns, a gate is locked, a customer forgot about the interior appointment. Skipping is not a failure. Skipping without telling anyone why is. A good skip takes ten seconds and saves the office a phone call, the customer a surprise, and the account a missed quarter.

Skip Is a Message, Not a Shrug

The three buttons are introduced in Start, Skip, Complete: The Three Buttons That Run a Pest Control Route. This article is about the one that needs the most care.

In the PestBossPro tech app, tapping Skip takes the stop off today's list and asks for a note. The office sees the skip and the note right away. A recurring account stays due on the Waiting List until it is actually completed, so a skipped quarterly does not quietly roll over to next quarter. It sits on the map as due or overdue until someone gets it done.

Weather: Rain and Wind

Weather is the most common reason to skip in pest control, and it is a good one. The label is the law, and many labels restrict application in rain, before rain, or in wind. Follow the label for every product you use.

A good weather skip note says what the conditions were and what would work instead:

• “Steady rain, exterior perimeter not done. Try Thursday.”
• “Wind gusting toward the neighbor's pool, mosquito barrier skipped. Morning slot better.”
• “Storm forecast within the hour, skipped granular treatment.”

Wind speed and direction and temperature are part of the application record for completed treatments, so technicians are already paying attention to conditions. A skip note is just the record of the day the conditions said no.

Locked Gates and No Access

The second most common skip is access. Codes change, gates get padlocked, a dog is loose in the back yard. Often the technician can do part of the job. In that case, the right move is usually not a full skip:

• Treat what can be reached, like the front and sides.
• Note what was missed: “Back yard not treated, gate padlocked.”
• Take a photo of the locked gate.
• Complete the stop with the note, or skip it if almost nothing could be done. Follow whatever rule your office sets.

Decide as a company which it is. Some owners want a partial stop completed with a note and a return visit for the back. Others want it skipped and rescheduled whole. Either works, as long as every technician does the same thing.

No One Home for the Interior

Interior services need the customer. When nobody answers the door:

• Do the exterior if it is on the plan.
• Note the interior was missed: “No answer at door 2:15pm. Exterior done, interior not done.”
• Leave a door hanger if your company uses them.

The office sees the note and can text the customer through two-way texting to set a time for the interior. Automatic night-before and on-the-way texts cut down on these misses, because customers who know the technician is coming are more likely to be home. More on those texts in Automatic On-the-Way Texts From the Pest Control Technician's Phone.

Other Good Reasons to Skip

A few other situations call for a skip:

• Customer cancels at the door. “Customer asked to skip today, said she will call.”
• Unsafe conditions. “Aggressive dog loose in front yard.” Safety beats a stop.
• Kids or pets in the treatment area. “Kids playing in back yard, customer did not want to bring them in.”
• Wrong service scheduled. “Customer expected termite inspection, not general pest. Office please call.”

Each one tells the office what happened and what to do next.

What the Office Does With Skips

The office reviews skips during the day or at the end of it. For each one, the next step is usually clear from the note: text the customer, update the gate code, move the stop to tomorrow morning for calmer wind, or call about a scheduling mix-up.

Because skipped recurring accounts stay due on the Waiting List, they show up the next time the office builds a route in that area. A pin colored overdue past the 7-day grace is a reminder that a customer is waiting.

The Ten-Second Skip

A skip note does not need to be long. Reason, what was done, what to do next. Ten seconds at the curb replaces a phone call, a confused customer and a missed quarter. To see how skipping fits with the rest of the technician's day, visit the PestBossPro pest control app page.