PestBossPro Blog — Pest Control Software

Building Pest Control Routes: From the Waiting List to the Dispatch Board

A good pest control route is a tight loop of stops on the same side of town, in an order that doesn't make the tech cross the same intersection three times. A bad one is a list of addresses in the order they were written down. The difference shows up in fuel, in hours and in how many stops a truck finishes before the afternoon storms roll in.

Where Routes Start

Routes begin on the Waiting List, explained in Quarterly Pest Control Service on the Waiting List: How Recurring Accounts Come Due. Every account that has come due shows as a pin, colored by status. That's the raw material.

To build a route, circle an area on the map. The due accounts inside become a group you can assign to a truck and a day. One circle might be the north-side quarterly accounts. Another might be the strip of restaurants on the commercial route. New one-time jobs like an ant call can be added to whichever truck is nearby.

The Scheduled List and Dispatch Board

Once jobs are scheduled, they show on the Scheduled List, the dispatch board. Here you see jobs by day and can filter by truck, so each tech's day is easy to read on its own. This is the office's view of the week.

From the board you can:

• Auto-route a truck's day Closest First or Furthest First from the shop.
• Set the route order by hand when you know something the map doesn't, like a customer who wants the first stop of the day.
• Save views you use often, such as one truck's week or all commercial jobs.
• Print route sheets for a tech who still wants paper in the cab, or for a backup.

Closest First or Furthest First?

The two auto-route options suit different days. Closest First starts near the shop and works outward. It's a good choice when the tech needs to stop back at the shop mid-day, or when the early stops are customers who want the morning.

Furthest First drives out to the far end and works back toward the shop. It means the long drive happens fresh in the morning and the last stop of the day is close to home. Many owners prefer it for full days of quarterly service on the edge of their area.

Either way, auto-route gives you a sensible starting order, and you can adjust it by hand before the day starts.

How the Route Reaches the Truck

Whatever order you set on the dispatch board is the order the tech sees on their phone in the tech app. If the office moves a job, the phone follows. The tech works top to bottom: navigation to the next stop, read the notes, Start, treat, record, Complete.

As stops are completed, customers further down the route get their “on the way” text, and customers in the customer app can see how many stops away the tech is. Tech GPS shows on the office map, so the office knows where each truck is if a call comes in. The tech's side is covered in The Pest Control Tech App: What Your Technicians See on Their Phones.

Route-Building Habits for Small Companies

• Route by area, not by due date alone. A due account across town can usually wait a day for its own area's route, inside the grace period.
• Keep commercial and residential separate when you can. Commercial stops often have time windows; residential quarterly stops are more flexible.
• Leave room for call-ins. A route that is packed to the minute has no space for the wasp call that comes in at 10am.
• Check the weather before printing. Rain or wind may move exterior treatments. Moving the whole route on the board takes less time than calling every customer.

Print Route Sheets as a Backup

Even with the tech app, a printed route sheet has its place. Some techs like a paper copy on the clipboard. A new hire might want one for the first week while learning the app. And if a phone dies at noon, a sheet in the cab keeps the day moving. Print route sheets from the dispatch board in the same order the phone shows, so paper and screen never disagree. Treat the sheet as a backup, though, not the record: Start, Skip and Complete still happen in the app so the office sees progress and the records get built.

From Paper Lists to a Real Route

If you've been building routes by sorting a spreadsheet by zip code, the map is a big step. You see the clusters, you circle them, the software orders them, and the tech's phone shows the result. The whole week can be laid out in one sitting.

Routes are the hinge between the office and the truck. To see how they connect to records, customer texts and billing, visit the PestBossPro pest control software page.