3 Big Pest Control Companies Thrive with 'Game-Changers' in FieldRoutes Software

Whether it's an owner-as-technician business or a multi-state operation, pest control companies of all sizes find a fit and find revenue gains with FieldRoutes.

"I would recommend FieldRoutes to companies that want to grow, that want to scale," says Aaron Curtis, chief experience officer at Alta Pest Control.

Alta, which operates in 12 states, claimed the No. 30 position in Pest Control Technology’s Top 100 for 2023, with revenue of $37.8 million. Since 2017, Alta has used numerous features and functionalities in FieldRoutes software to fuel its growth. 

And Alta is getting results. Two key revenue figures stand out:

• 1,000% growth for Alta since it became a FieldRoutes partner.

• 400% increase in the past three years.

"Our partnership with FieldRoutes has been a key driver of these achievements," Curtis says. "We have not only grown financially and geographically, but we have also expanded our footprint and service offerings significantly. By integrating FieldRoutes into all of our daily operations, we have seen impactful and incremental growth across multiple areas of our business."

And it's not just Alta. All "U" Need Pest Control, another of the 41 FieldRoutes partners who rank among the PCT Top 100, and HomeShield Pest Control, which serves customers in California and Florida, also are thriving.

"FieldRoutes is a good fit for a larger company," says Zachariah Boardman, HomeShield’s operations manager. "If you want to do things in bulk in a very quick and efficient manner, and being able to audit that and look at it after you put everything on the schedule and you enter in all of your sales, you can do a lot of that with just a click of a button.” 

Representatives from all three companies spoke with us during the Ignite customer conference in Orlando, Florida, and shared some of the reasons they embrace FieldRoutes and its pest control software platform.

Managing multiple locations

All "U" Need, which sprang 31 places to No. 63 in the most recent PCT Top 100, partnered with FieldRoutes in 2017, when All “U” Need’s current ownership took over. At the time, All "U" Need counted about 300 customers and $300,000 in revenue. Now the company lists 42,000 customers and is aiming for $22 million in revenue for 2024.

All "U" Need has divided its 10 offices into four regions.

"All of those local service managers can see everything," says Kyle Selbach, All “U” Need’s director of operations. "It keeps it very streamlined, so I know what revenues each office is doing, down to what regions are doing revenues, their sales goals."

Alta, which received the Excellence Achieved Award from FieldRoutes at Ignite, operates 17 locations in 12 states with about 350 full-time employees. 

"FieldRoutes allows us to have no geographic limitations as we grow and expand," Curtis says. 

Above: The Alta Pest Control leadership team.

He cited the need for Alta to split an office in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area into two. 

"Splitting those two: I wouldn't have ever even entertained the idea, even though it was necessary, had we not had the ease of use with FieldRoutes being able to geographically split boundaries, assign those boundaries, even giving us prompts to where a customer is going to be created," Curtis says. 

"I mean, this is future stuff. I love it."

HomeShield serves customers in the Sacramento Valley and Southern California on the West Coast and near Vero Beach and Fort Lauderdale in Florida on the East Coast. FieldRoutes functionality allows HomeShield to see different reports and employ different KPIs among its branches.

"Being able to forecast labor needs, being able to forecast how many hours we're going to have to put in this particular area versus this area," Boardman says. "And then also being able to trend different results, whether it be pest pressures or accounts receivable."

Adding new customers 

The switch to FieldRoutes enabled All “U” Need and its sales representatives to capitalize on its door-knocking sales strategy. Selbach says the company is adding 150-200 new accounts daily.

"They're signing up subscriptions, getting payments on file, signing service agreements, and that's moving seamlessly into our operations and getting scheduled right away," Selbach says of using the FieldRoutes® Mobile app. "There's no lag time. There are no phone calls that need to be made. That door-to-door continuity is probably the biggest thing that has helped us grow."

Above: An All "U" Need Pest Control technician consulting with a customer.

Curtis touts FieldRoutes’ enterprise support, but Alta finds no need for that when onboarding new customers.

"We're able to add users without calling into an IT support desk," Curtis says. "We're able to customize and adjust preferences on a global scale without calling an enterprise support desk.”

Intelligent Routing and scheduling

FieldRoutes software’s Intelligent Routing allows an area of customers to be assigned by a preferred technician, day, or region. It then creates pre-built routes that are optimized efficiently. This has helped HomeShield Pest Control improve efficiency in its own routing by 15%-20%.

"We get to the end of the month and then we put everything on the schedules again," Boardman says. "Previously, we were just going through moving appointments around, trying to find the best fit based off the map or distance. 

“Intelligent Routing is taking a lot of that manual work out of there."

Above: Part of the fleet for HomeShield Pest Control.

Intelligent Routing and optimization have helped create a significant number of additional stops for Alta compared to Curtis' experience with other software platforms.

"With FieldRoutes we could see visualized grouping, similar to FedEx and UPS, pulling things in, optimizing the routes, making it more efficient," he says. "We saw our average stops – eight to nine stops on a route – going up to 14."

And where would Alta be without those software capabilities?

"It wouldn't be possible to deliver any type of a semblance of a consistent service to our customers," Curtis says, "if we didn't have the basis of a visual grouping and scheduling system that FieldRoutes delivers to us."

Ease of use

When partners of pest control companies of any size are asked about their use of FieldRoutes software, “simple” and “easy” are often among the first responses. In the case of All “U” Need, that’s vital because growth means adding not only new customers but also new employees.

"One word to describe FieldRoutes: Simple,” Selbach says. "FieldRoutes is very user-friendly, and everything is right there at one click of a button."

Above: Inside the office at All "U" Need Pest Control.

FieldRoutes software does “simple things but in a very large manner” for HomeShield.

"It's very easy to use," Boardman says. "You can look at it for maybe 10, 15 minutes, and I feel like you could already start scheduling appointments, finding customer information."

Alta promoted a customer service representative to billing manager, even though the employee didn't have that experience, "because of the ease of use of the system,” Curtis adds.

Automation and efficiencies

FieldRoutes automates communications with customers, with employees, and between customers and employees in multiple ways. 

Selbach, a finalist for the Excellence Achieved Award from FieldRoutes at Ignite, considers the experience from the customer's viewpoint in evaluating how All "U" Need uses AutoPay.

"I put a credit card on file, it automatically charges my account, and that's it," he says. "I don't have to interact much, if I don't want to, with my service technician. They come to my property, they do the service, I get the information if I want it, and then I move on with my day."

Above: A technician for All "U" Need Pest Control.

Curtis likes how Trigger Rules, which can free up hours by creating actions on customer accounts under certain conditions, provide notifications before and after service for a customer. Trigger Rules can send a customized email, text, voicemail, or postal message based on a customer’s balance, balance age, or number of days overdue. 

"The automation, systemization, and scalability that FieldRoutes has built, bar none, allows us to focus on what we're good at,” Curtis says, “which is the human interaction, and allows the system to run the things that were robotic habits and patterns that just waste our time."

Integrations

FieldRoutes' API gives customers the chance to connect with other solutions, bringing them together on one platform. 

"We can adapt any early-onset innovative technology, use it for what we're trying to accomplish," Curtis says, "and there's no restrictions because of the open API freedom that FieldRoutes allows us to have."

Above: A technician providing service for HomeShield Pest Control.

FieldRoutes' integration of Marketing Pro and Fleet Pro, powered by ServiceTitan, also offer more solutions for a pest control company. HomeShield will use both, generating revenue from recurring services by revisiting old leads or former customers and reaching new neighborhoods while reducing spend in Marketing Pro and by gaining transparency with real-time tracking of technicians in Fleet Pro.

"They're just really tying everything together and integrating everything for us," Boardman says of FieldRoutes. "It's been pretty awesome."

The evolving software

FieldRoutes software continues to adapt its platform with the newest technologies to meet the needs of its customers. 

Besides recent software introductions – the On My Way Notification for technicians is a favorite for Curtis – these company leaders are also excited about what’s to come.

Bundled services, allowing companies to group common combinations of services under a single subscription, and convenience payments, a way for end customers to prepay a standard amount on their preferred frequency and then have the invoice charge on each service automatically deducted from the balance, have Curtis’ attention. 

Above: The HomeShield Pest Control team during a presentation.

HomeShield is embarking on the use of Marketing Pro and Fleet Pro, both among newer integrations from ServiceTitan.

"They're just really tying everything together and integrating everything for us," Boardman says. "It's been pretty awesome."

Selbach is looking forward to auto-scheduling recurring appointments, saying it’s another innovation to reduce "the monotonous and the minutiae.” 

"That's going to be incredible," Selbach says.

The ongoing upgrades by FieldRoutes to its platform also earn Selbach’s praise. Selbach is a member of the Pathfinder Network, which gives a community of partners a chance to interact with the FieldRoutes team and to influence the platform’s future. 

"You guys are constantly listening to the consumer, being us, the pest control operators," Selbach says of FieldRoutes, "and adapting to what we need. And it's noticed, and it's appreciated."

FieldRoutes delivers efficiency and empowers growth

FieldRoutes software is enabling these three large companies to grow their revenue while operating efficiently. If your company is ready to learn more, call or click to book a free demo. 

If you need one last bit of inspiration, we’ll leave you with final thoughts from all three company leaders:

Aaron Curtis, Alta Pest Control: "We want to stay relevant, we want to stay focused, and we try to be up-and-comers, innovators. FieldRoutes allows us to do that.” 

Kyle Selbach, All “U” Need Pest Control: "FieldRoutes makes running our business very seamless and able to project growth going forward.”

Zachariah Boardman, HomeShield Pest Control: "FieldRoutes software has made my life easier and our team's life easier. The overall efficiency and the visibility that it provides, whether it's selling out in the field or selling in the office or providing customer service. And then the way that all of these things connect and then present you with the reports and the data. If you're trying to operate on a large scale, it makes it super, super easy to do that."

Above: A technician for Alta Pest Control.