PestBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Letting Pest Control Customers Update Their Own Card in the Customer App

Every card on file eventually changes. Cards expire every few years, get replaced after a lost wallet or a fraud alert, and get switched when a customer changes banks. Each change used to mean a phone call: the customer reads sixteen digits, the office writes them down, somebody types them in. Self-service card updates take that call out of the day.

Cards Change, and Customers Know First

The same-day routine for a failed charge is in Declined Cards on Pest Control Accounts: What to Do the Same Day. The step that routine leans on most is the customer updating their own card, which is what this article covers.

The customer is always the first to know their card changed. They got the new card in the mail, or called the bank about the fraud. If updating the card on file with you is easy, many will do it before the next charge ever declines. If it means calling during business hours, most will not get around to it.

What the Customer Sees

The PestBossPro customer app is where your customers handle their account without calling. Among other things, they can:

• Update their card on file.
• See their invoices and pay online, including any open invoice from a declined charge.
• See today's route when they are on it, like “You're stop 12 of 20 — the tech is 5 stops away.”
• Request service, sign up for additional services, and rate and refer.
• Set alert preferences: night before, when they are next, and when the tech arrives.

The customer app runs in the browser on the customer's phone. There is nothing to find in an app store.

Why Self-Service Is Safer

Taking card numbers over the phone feels normal because so many businesses still do it, but it is a poor habit. The number gets written on a pad, read aloud in an office where others can hear, or texted to a phone that a former employee still has. Every one of those is a way for a customer's card to leak.

When customers update their own card in the customer app, the number never passes through your office. Nobody writes it down, nobody reads it back, and it is not sitting in a notes field. If a customer insists on reading it over the phone, enter it directly into the payment screen and do not write it anywhere else.

Pointing Customers to the App

Customers will not update a card in an app they do not know about. Mention it at every natural moment:

• At sign-up: “You can see your invoices and update your card any time in our customer app.”
• On a decline: a text with a short note pointing them to update it there.
• On invoices and emails: a line reminding them where to manage their payment.
• When they call: help them update it in the app while they are on the phone, so next time they know how.

Two-way texting makes the decline case simple. The office sends the text from the account, the customer updates the card, and if they have a question, they reply on the same thread.

Commercial Accounts and Shared Cards

Commercial accounts change cards more often than homeowners. The office manager who set up the account leaves, a corporate card is reissued, or the business switches to paying by check through accounts payable. For multi-location accounts set to Monthly, one statement covers every location, so there is one payment to manage rather than a card per address. Make sure the billing contact on the account is current, because the person who updates the card is not always the person who calls about service.

What It Saves

Every card update the customer handles on their own is a phone call the office does not take and a decline that may never happen. Across a route of recurring customers, that is real time back each month, and fewer accounts drifting into past due because a card quietly expired. Online payment from the app has its own article,Online Payment From the Pest Control Customer App.

Put the Card in the Customer's Hands

The cheapest way to keep cards current is to let the people who own them update them. Tell customers about the customer app early and often, send declines straight there, and keep card numbers out of the office. For more on how PestBossPro handles payments, visit the pest control invoicing software page.