The technician arrives for an indoor treatment. The reported activity covers several units, but the caller only controls one. Pest control customer screening should catch that before the van leaves.
Screen the work. Not the caller’s personality. Decide whether the problem is identifiable, authorized, accessible, ready and inside your service boundary.
Set four booking outcomes before answering the next lead
Give office staff four routes. Treatment visit. Inspection first. Information hold. Decline and refer.
Do not let every enquiry become a treatment booking. A full calendar means nothing if technicians arrive without access, preparation or a workable scope.
Book a treatment visit when the service is clear
Use a treatment booking only when your own booking rules have been met. You need a defined affected area, a service you offer, authority to enter, confirmed preparation and a named payer.
The caller’s description still remains an observation. Do not turn “small brown insects near the sink” into a confirmed identification. Record what was seen and what your team expects to inspect or treat.
Book an inspection when important facts remain unknown
Choose an inspection when the pest identity, source, extent or site conditions cannot be established during intake. The same applies when several units, common areas, wall cavities, roof spaces or exterior entry points may be involved.
An inspection and a treatment visit are different jobs. They need different time allowances, preparation instructions and technician notes. Mark the appointment correctly before assigning it.
Hold the lead when one missing fact blocks dispatch
Do not reserve technician time while waiting for a photo, unit number, approval email, key arrangement or preparation confirmation. Put the lead on an information hold. Name the missing item and the person responsible for supplying it.
Give the customer one clear next step. “Send photos of the affected cupboard and confirm who can approve work in the neighbouring unit” is useful. “We need more information” is not.
Decline work that does not fit
Decline when the requested work falls outside your services, training or licence. Do the same when safe access cannot be arranged or the customer expects work you have already excluded.
Keep the answer short. State that you cannot accept the requested job. If you have a suitable referral route, provide it without making promises for another contractor. Do not debate the caller’s diagnosis.
Build a pest control customer screening record
A useful pest customer intake record gives the technician facts. It does not hide the job inside a long call transcript.
Record the caller, site, observed activity, affected area, authority, access, preparation and booking decision in separate fields. Mark unanswered questions instead of leaving blanks that look complete.
Identify the people and the property
Record the caller’s name, contact details and relationship to the property. Then record the service address, property type and exact affected area.
For a house, that might be a kitchen cupboard, attic edge or exterior wall. For a commercial or multi-unit property, record the unit, floor, tenancy area, common area or structure. “Problem throughout building” is not a dispatch note.
Ask for the preferred contact method. Also name the person who will meet the technician if that is not the caller.
Separate observations from confirmed findings
Write “customer reports scratching above the bedroom ceiling.” Do not write a confirmed pest name unless your contractor has established it.
Photos can help with triage. They may show an insect, droppings, damage or the affected room. They may not show the source, extent, entry point or conditions behind a wall.
Label customer photos as customer-supplied. Ask the technician to replace assumptions with inspection findings in the job record.
Ask practical pest inspection questions
Your pest inspection questions should locate the activity without diagnosing it over the phone. Ask:
- What did you see, hear or find?
- Where exactly did you notice it?
- When did it begin?
- When is the activity usually present?
- How often has it happened?
- Are several rooms, units or structures affected?
- Is there visible damage, nesting material, droppings or another sign?
- Can the customer send clear photos of the sign and surrounding area?
- Has anyone already treated the area?
- What product or method was used, if known?
- When was the previous treatment performed, if known?
Keep the customer’s words where they matter. “Seen beside dry-food storage after closing” gives the technician more than a guessed pest name.
Use a blank intake record
Copy this structure into your call form or job system:
Caller name: Caller contact details: Preferred contact method: Service address: Property type: Caller’s relationship to property: Site contact: Access contact: Work approver: Payer: Customer’s description of activity: Exact affected rooms, units or exterior areas: Date activity began: Usual time or frequency: Photos or records supplied: Previous treatment and date, if known: Children, pets, food areas or accommodation needs: Access limits and restricted areas: Known site hazards: Preparation required: Person completing preparation: Requested appointment: Booking outcome: Unanswered questions: Person responsible for resolving them: Included scope: Assumptions: Exclusions: Follow-up boundary: Payment responsibility: Technician notes:
Remove fields that never change a dispatch decision. Add a field when the same missing fact causes repeat callouts.
Confirm authority, access and payment responsibility
The caller may report the problem without having authority to approve entry, treatment or payment. Record each role separately.
Name the occupant, site contact, access contact, approver and payer. One person may fill every role in a house. A commercial or multi-unit property may have a different person for each.
Ask who controls the affected area. Ask who can approve work outside that area. Ask who receives the quote and invoice. Do not assume that a tenant, employee or front-desk contact can approve the job.
For managed properties, record unit boundaries and common areas. Confirm keys, entry windows, required notices, escorts and locked rooms before dispatch. If the caller only controls one unit but reports activity in several, route the lead to an inspection or information hold until authority is clear.
Disputed payment responsibility is a stop sign. Resolve whether the occupant, property owner, manager or another party will approve and pay before reserving the visit.
When the lead becomes recurring work, carry the named payer and approval route into the guide to invoicing recurring pest treatments. The invoice should follow the agreement made at intake, not a guess made after service.
Check preparation and site conditions before booking treatment
Preparation is part of the booking gate. If the planned service depends on cupboards being cleared, food being protected, occupants leaving an area or pets being managed, ask who will complete that work.
Do not send instructions and assume they were read. Ask the customer to confirm that the preparation can be completed before the appointment. If a resident needs help or cannot follow the planned steps, pause and decide which visit can be performed safely.
Record children, pets, food handling areas and accommodation needs that affect the visit. Do not collect irrelevant personal details. Ask only for information needed to plan the work and protect people at the site.
Ask about crawlspaces, roof spaces, ladders, locked rooms, loading areas, parking restrictions and active construction. Record known electrical, structural, chemical or access hazards. Name the qualified supervisor who reviews a hazard before anyone books the visit.
Stop and escalate immediate danger
Before booking a normal visit, ask whether anyone is in immediate danger, may have been exposed to a pesticide or must enter an unsafe structure. Do not route those reports as routine pest calls.
Tell the caller to contact the appropriate emergency service or official poison centre for immediate danger or suspected exposure. Send unsafe structures and other uncertain site hazards to a qualified supervisor for a dispatch decision. Office staff should not give medical advice or decide that a dangerous site is safe.
Check Canadian pesticide requirements
Check the pesticide regulator on your province or territory’s official government website for applicator, business and local use requirements. Write down which requirements cover the work you plan to offer. Do not guess at licence classes, permits or permitted scope.
Check registered-product and label requirements with Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (opens in a new tab). The product label and the work being offered must reach the person planning the visit.
Use a pest control lead checklist as a dispatch gate
A pest control lead checklist should produce a booking decision. It should not become paperwork that everyone completes and nobody reads.
Run every lead through these gates:
- Problem: Is the reported activity and affected area specific enough for the selected appointment?
- Service fit: Is the requested work inside your stated services, training and licence?
- Authority: Can the right person approve access, work and payment?
- Access: Can the technician reach every area included in the visit?
- Readiness: Can required preparation be completed and confirmed?
- Site conditions: Have hazards and operating restrictions been recorded, and who reviews them?
- Payment: Who pays, when is payment due and who can approve extra work?
Route the lead from the answers. Clear facts can support a treatment booking. Unknown identity, extent or conditions point to an inspection. A missing photo, approval or access detail creates an information hold. Work outside your boundary gets declined.
Watch for promises that bypass the gate. A request for guaranteed removal, treatment across inaccessible units or an exact treatment price before inspection does not become workable because the caller wants an immediate answer.
Turn qualified intake into scope before price
Choose the appointment before building the price. An inspection price covers the defined inspection visit. A treatment quote covers the treatment scope you can state. Do not price an unknown treatment as though the inspection has already happened.
Once the scope is known, build the price from expected labour, materials, travel or overhead allocation and markup. Use your own costs. The job-pricing guide shows how to move from cost to a sell price without inventing a market rate.
State the target area, planned service and customer preparation. List assumptions that affect the work. Then write exclusions for areas, pests, repairs, follow-up visits or access not included.
An exclusion does not repair a vague scope. “Other work excluded” tells the technician and customer nothing. Name the boundary.
Worked example: carry the exclusion into the job record
Oak Street is the house electrical example, not a pest control rate.
R. Chen’s Quote Q-1847 at 14 Oak Street covered a bathroom exhaust fan and four LED downlights for 1,105 sample currency units. The ceiling was lined, and chasing was excluded. Extra cable and chasing were approved on site as a 160 change order, so Invoice INV-1847 was 1,265.
The paper trail is the point. Chasing was excluded from Quote Q-1847, and the 160 change order was approved before the extra work proceeded.
Use the same control on a pest job. If the intake covers one unit and the technician discovers activity in adjoining units, do not quietly expand the work. Record the finding. Define the added inspection or treatment scope. Get approval before starting extra work.
Confirm payment terms and the booking
Set pest control payment terms after choosing the appointment and scope. Name the payer, the payment point and the person who can approve extra work.
For a commercial site, record any purchase order or approval step the customer says is required. Do not start the job while the customer expects somebody else to sort out payment later.
Send the appointment type, service address, included area, preparation instructions, access plan and payment terms in writing. Ask for confirmation. If preparation is not confirmed, move the booking instead of hoping the technician can work around it.
Keep guarantees and follow-up boundaries plain. Do not promise an outcome that the inspection has not established. State what the booked visit includes, what would trigger another visit and what remains outside the price.
Hand the technician one usable job record
Put the intake facts, customer photos, booking decision, access instructions, preparation status, hazards, scope and unanswered questions in one record. The technician should not need to search through emails and call notes beside the van.
Use the pest control industry job tools to carry those details into the assigned job.
After an inspection, record what the technician confirmed. Update the affected area, access needs and recommended scope before converting the job to treatment. Keep the original customer observations visible so the office can see what changed.
Attach actual technician time, materials and callbacks to the completed job. That gives you cost tracking by the job that was actually booked. Use the actual job-costing process when you compare the intake decision with the finished work.
Common questions
Should recurring customers complete a new intake every time?
Keep the existing property and contact record. Run pest control customer screening again for the facts that may have changed: the activity, affected area, occupants, access conditions, previous service and current approver. Do not assume the last visit still describes the site.
What if the reported activity stops before the appointment?
Ask when it was last seen and whether signs remain. Keep, change or cancel the appointment based on the work you can still perform. Do not promise that the problem has ended because the customer has not noticed recent activity.