PestBossPro Blog — Tech App

Technician GPS on the Office Map: Knowing Where Every Pest Control Truck Is

The phone rings at 11am. A customer has a wasp nest over the front door and a kid allergic to stings. Which truck is closest? Without GPS, the office calls each technician, interrupts a treatment, and asks where they are. With technician GPS on the office map, the office looks at the screen and knows in a few seconds.

Where the Location Comes From

Hours are covered in The Time Clock in the Pest Control Tech App. Location is the other thing the office wants to know during the day.

In PestBossPro, technician GPS comes from the tech app on the technician's phone. When the technician has allowed location access, their position shows on the office map. There is no separate tracking device to install in the truck. The same phone that shows the route, takes the photos and records the treatments also tells the office where the technician is.

What the Office Uses It For

GPS on the office map is a dispatch tool, not a surveillance tool. In a small pest control company, it answers practical questions:

• Same-day calls. Which truck is closest to the new wasp, ant or rodent call?
• Customer questions. “When will the technician get here?” The office can see where the truck is and how many stops are ahead.
• Route changes. If a stop needs to move, which technician can take it with the least driving?
• Safety. If a technician does not answer the phone for a long time, the office can see where they were last.
• End of day. Which trucks are still out and which are back?

GPS Plus the Waiting List

GPS gets more useful next to the rest of the office map. The Waiting List shows every account that has come due, colored not due yet, due now, or overdue past a 7-day grace. When a technician finishes early and is sitting near a cluster of due-now pins, the office can add a few of them to the end of the day.

That is a simple way to keep recurring accounts from drifting overdue. A truck that is already in the neighborhood can pick up a quarterly service that was due this week, without a separate trip later.

Customers See Progress Too

On service day, customers can see today's route in the customer app: “You're stop 12 of 20 — the tech is 5 stops away.” That view is about their place in line, so they can plan around the visit without calling. It works best when technicians move through the stops in order and tap them as they go.

Combined with on-the-way and arrived texts, customers rarely need to call the office to ask where the technician is. When they do, the office has the answer on the map. More on those texts in Automatic On-the-Way Texts From the Pest Control Technician's Phone.

Explaining GPS to Technicians

Technicians sometimes worry about GPS. The way you introduce it matters. Be direct about what it is for:

• It is for dispatch. Getting same-day calls to the closest truck, answering customers and moving stops.
• It is for their safety. If something goes wrong on a remote property, the office knows where to send help.
• It cuts phone calls. The office calls less often to ask where they are, because the answer is on the map.
• It comes from the work phone app. Location access is part of the tech app, not a secret tracker.

Tell technicians when location is used, and do not use it as a way to nitpick every five-minute stop at a gas station. Owners who use GPS to help technicians get a better day out of it than owners who use it to catch them.

Practical Notes

A few practical things to know:

• Location needs the technician to allow location access for the app on their phone.
• The tech app needs a data connection. In rural dead zones, do not expect the office map to stay current until the phone has signal again.
• Location uses battery. A truck charger keeps the phone going through the day.
• If two technicians share one phone, the location belongs to whoever is signed in with their PIN.

Dead zones are covered in Poor Signal on a Pest Control Route: What the App Needs and How to Plan Around Dead Zones.

The Office Sees the Whole Day

Technician GPS turns the office map into a live picture of the day: where the trucks are, which accounts are due, and which stops are done. The office makes better decisions and makes fewer calls. To see how GPS fits with the rest of the technician's phone, visit the PestBossPro pest control app page.