Barrier Pest Control Case Study

After struggling to keep up with their growing workload, Barrier Pest Control was ready to add time saving automation to their manual process.

About The Company

Founded in 2006 by brothers, Mike and Kirk Dean, Barrier Pest Control proudly serves the Treasure Valley area of Idaho with commercial and residential pest control services. Since the beginning, they have been fully committed to putting their customers first and maintaining a high level of service to their community. They have one location with six full-time technicians, three full-time office staff, and two salespeople, in addition to several seasonal employees.

The Challenge

After years of service, Barrier was facing serious growing pains. Every day, their office staff would spend hours preparing routes for the technicians by printing them out along with pre-generated invoices then placing them in envelopes with special notes. They also called every customer the day before their scheduled service to remind them of their appointments. This was on top of their main responsibility of answering calls, scheduling services, and providing top-notch customer service. 

Technicians would turn in their route papers, and each page would be checked manually for notes and missed services. Their sales team carried around carbon paper contracts that would be completed in the field then manually entered by the office staff. This time-consuming process would often lead to scheduling issues since the sales team had no idea what the technicians’ schedules looked like. The routing software they were using was not as efficient as they needed it to be, and their manual processes left plenty of room for human error. It was quickly becoming a struggle to balance their ever-growing workload, which made it difficult to maintain the excellent customer service they were known for.

The Solution

Always on the lookout for better methods to support their growth and improve service, Barrier decided it was time to incorporate modern, time-saving automation to their process. They began researching software solutions that could help beef up the efficiency of their operation and further improve their reputation for first-class customer service. After looking into the various solutions available, they decided that FieldRoutes—then known as PestRoutes—was the only viable software option. In March of 2015, they decided to move forward with the FieldRoutes™ Operations Suite

The Impact

After implementing FieldRoutes, Barrier has greatly improved efficiencies across the board, including scheduling, routing, sales, reporting, and more. They’ve dramatically reduced their reliance on paper and manual processes, leading to significant cost savings and improvements on the commercial side of their business. As Ben Sowards, Service Manager for Barrier Pest Control, puts it “We practically use no paper now. Everything can be sent digitally via email and text. Having all that automated means that if our Department of Agriculture or a customer asks for a record, we can send a pdf copy, instantly.” 

The sales and lead progression tools have also provided a boost to their commercial business. Sowards continues, “The lead progression and sales side has been good for commercial. The software keeps our team on task, so we can follow up with each of the businesses we’re perusing in a timely manner. This has led to a substantial number of additional sales.” On the residential side, the ability to close deals, enter the customer data in the system, and schedule them right away has also led to additional time-savings and improved service.

The scheduling and routing abilities in the system have added even more efficiency to the technicians’ day, allowing Barrier to know where their technicians need to be so they can effectively schedule them and create efficient routes. This is particularly important since they cover a nearly 200-mile service area. “The time savings adds up. The automation helps techs get more done, faster, so they can handle more stops per day. That’s the stuff I care about,” continued Sowards. 

Because they place such a premium on customer service, Barrier is especially fond of the automated communications, which allow them to send routine messages to customers for service reminders. Recently, they’ve begun to leverage these communications to follow-up with customers after retreats, which allows them to go the extra mile and ensure their customers feel their needs are being adequately attended to. 

Perhaps the most significant impact to their business is the data collection and reporting, which allows for improved forecasting. Barrier typically relies on seasonal employees to help get through their busy summer months. With FieldRoutes, they’re able to look at trends and technician efficiency data. This helps them accurately project future demand, which lets them to know how many additional employees they’ll need and gives them plenty of time to find, hire, and train personnel so they are ready when they are needed. 

With FieldRoutes, Barrier Pest Control has everything they need to make life easier for their team and continue delivering stellar service to their community.

“FieldRoutes transitioned over rather flawlessly and quickly. Overall, it has been a huge upgrade!”

-Ben Sowards, Service Manager www.barrierpestcontrol.com 208-286-2999

Since implementing FieldRoutes, Barrier Pest Control has experienced the following:

• Increased their customer base by a whopping 343% in five years of using the system.

• Increased commercial sales by leveraging FieldRoutes lead progression tools.

• Improved their forecasting, helping them hire seasonal employees in a timely manner.