Introduction

The Problem with Compliance Today 

Compliance: there are many ways we talk about it. A necessary evil, a chore, a struggle, or a critically important part of the business. We all know how crucial it is, to help save lives and keep projects on track.

Whether you are in construction or waste management, there are a variety of things that must be checked, some multiple times a day. Equipment, proper safety gear, and clear fire exits could all be things you check and recheck. A simple oversight such as using the wrong pair of gloves can lead to disastrous consequences.

You may think you have your compliance bases covered. But did you know that manual processes can undermine your safety? They are an inherently bad way of collecting and sharing information. It can take hours or days to get information back to your office. Even then, it can be difficult to understand and be missing crucial information.

Even worse, it takes additional time to enter all this information into your system. A broken piece of equipment, thus, could take hours or days to fix, just because of slow reporting. This lag drains time and money; employees spend time on data entry and filing instead of other tasks. Instead of making decisions, you spend hours collecting and formatting the data just to get an understanding of what’s happening in your business. 

You deserve the bigger picture, especially on compliance. You deserve to get that quickly, with accurate information. You deserve to get it in a way that allows you to make the best decisions for your business. But getting the bigger picture with paper or Excel spreadsheets is costly and inefficient. 

In this guide, we’ll show you how the strategic use of mobile technology can help you save hundreds of hours and get actionable intelligence in real time. With more accessible and affordable options for smartphones and tablets, there are new ways to ensure your work is safe and more productive than ever. 

More than faster work, you’ll get greater insights and stronger record keeping

Chapter 1: How to Think Strategically About Compliance and Technology Today

15 years ago, the iPhone didn’t even exist. How has mobile technology changed the safety industry? Mobile technology has had a huge impact on the safety industry within the past few years.

Today with a smartphone or tablet, an employee out in the field has the ability to conduct and record safety inspections and share their findings faster than ever before. Thus safety coordinators have access to the most current information.

Even if employees are working in an area without an internet connection, they can still use mobile technology to collect and share data. For example, our clients can use GoCanvas in the field and users can sync their data once they regain internet access.

Has technology made compliance easier? Has anything become more difficult in the past 15 years?

Technology has certainly made it easier for organizations to achieve regulatory compliance. Many safety management software systems allow users to quickly and easily generate accurate regulatory reports, such as OSHA 300, 300A, and 301 logs. 

Managers can also use safety management technology to reinforce their employees’ compliance with safety processes. This can be done simply by using the system to schedule email notifications to alert employees to complete a training course or to perform an inspection or corrective action. 

As regulations change, technology makes it easier to update inspections and collect data quickly. Instead of printing off new forms that take hours or days to reach the field, edits can be made quickly to a mobile form, and be ready for immediate use. 

Since 2007, regulations and safety training requirements have increased in complexity, which has made using safety technology even more crucial.

Does technology give companies a strategic advantage? Why or why not?

Technology absolutely gives companies a strategic advantage because it saves their employees time and energy by allowing them to automatically generate required reports and collect data more efficiently than a manual process. A safety inspection done on paper, for instance, could take hours or days to make it to the office. 

In addition, safety management software allows safety professionals to easily track and identify trends in their companies’ reporting, giving them increased visibility into their business operations.

For large work sites, corporate sites, or mobile workforces, safety management technology helps promote consistency in record keeping and reporting.

Still, many companies resist adopting time-saving technology. Why is that?

Change, in itself, is often difficult and professionals may be reluctant to modify their established business practices. In addition, a company must feel not only that a piece of technology will help save time, but also that it will be easy for employees to use.

Moving forward, technology is changing faster than ever before. What strategic questions must companies keep in mind? 

Because technology is advancing at such a quick pace, keeping an eye out for emerging trends has become extremely important. 

Companies should be mindful of how these trends and changes will impact their users’ needs and how they could be used to better serve them. Collecting feedback is a great way to determine the next steps that users would like to see.

How do you overcome barriers to adopting technology?

One specific client ensures their software’s navigation is clear and its design elements are simple and straightforward. They believe that it’s important to work with customers throughout the implementation process to ensure that their specific business needs are correctly assessed, that the software is configured to best suit their organization, and finally, that they are familiar with all available tools and features. 

It’s wonderful if an organization decides to use safety management software, but if they aren’t leveraging all that the technology has to offer, they won’t get the maximum return on their investment.

Chapter 2: Four Ways Mobile Inspections Ensure Better Compliance

The whole point of inspections is to ensure compliance. They help you ensure your work is up to code and your employees are safe.

Here are four ways mobile data collection ensures better compliance:

1. Receive each and every report

Perhaps it got lost on the way to your office. Maybe you go to look up a form later on and just can’t find it. Either way, you’re missing a report. It happens to many businesses. In fact, up to 11% of documents are misfiled or lost. That’s 11% of your time wasted. Worse, lost inspections create a massive liability risk. 

Going mobile ensures you receive every inspection. Every finished safety inspection is stored securely in the cloud. There, you can access each and every data point. 

GoCanvas also makes it easy in case OSHA audits you. With all safety inspections stored in your GoCanvas account, you can quickly retrieve your safety inspections to prove your continued dedication to a culture of safety. 

A mobile data collection ensures your business has all the safety inspection records you need to stay in compliance and give you an accurate bigger picture.

2. Wait, what does this say?

Reading handwriting can be an art. You can have amazing inspectors, but if you can’t read their writing, they might as well have written the information in Latin! 

Mobile data collection allows you to gather that information in a clear and easy-to-understand way. Every inspection has typed text. Easily read it at your computer, or even on the go on a smartphone or tablet. You’ll spend less time trying to translate and more time getting work done.

3. Right time, right place

A safety inspection done on paper can be hard to verify. How can you be sure that it occurred at the appropriate time and place? Some companies have tried to game the system: New York is taking up a case against a business that hired unqualified people to pose as licensed site safety managers. These bad eggs, however, can put additional pressure on other businesses to prove that their work sites are safe.

Going mobile can provide additional information to protect and validate your inspections. Automatic date and time stamps prove when an inspection took place. With one click, you can have GPS capture your location, proving that the inspection occurred at the right location. You can also take photos, providing visual information to back up your inspection. Need a signature? Just sign with a finger or a stylus. 

All of these features provide additional proof that manual processes can’t provide. They create external validation, protecting your business even further. Digital processes keep your business safe and help you gather more information than ever before.

4. No more holes in knowledge

It doesn’t matter how many asterisks or underlines you use; sometimes forms come back incomplete. With forms taking hours or days to come to your office, it’s often too late to go back and get good information. 

A mobile inspection removes this headache. With one click, you can make the fields required. Even if an employee skips a section, they won’t be able to submit their inspection until they fill out the required fields. No more chasing down employees days later, just easy-to-read and complete inspections at your fingertips. Creating accurate reports relies on having the best data possible. Mobile technology reduces human error and allows you to gather more information in real-time. Say goodbye to illegible handwriting, missing paperwork, and other holes in your information. Say goodbye to incomplete information and say hello to accurate, real-time data each and every time.

Chapter 3: How TE3CO Leverages Data Analytics to Unlock Business Potential 

Now that TE3CO has implemented GoCanvas to help with field operations and management, they’re able to save time and money by eliminating manual processes and having data that’s accessible for decision-making.

About TE3CO

TE3CO provides mission-critical pressure relief technology and services to customers across the oil and gas industry. They employ a highly trained and capable workforce of field technicians and engineers.

The Challenge

Before working with GoCanvas, TE3CO relied on spreadsheets and emails to manage their ticketing process but found the system time-consuming and difficult to track. The business had grown from 3 units to over 140 units across the U.S. and Canada in a short period of time, and the ticketing process had become an “absolute nightmare” in the words of John Kovac, Technology Integration Manager at TE3CO. 

• Highly complex 
• Multiple clicks 
• Manual data entry 
• Time-consuming 
• Traceability was difficult

The Solution

TE3CO partnered with GoCanvas to simplify its ticketing process and increase efficiency: 

• Minimize rework and ensure accuracy by automating data entry 
• Streamline data collection through one database 
• Identify bottlenecks and improve process efficiency with data analytics 
• Spend less time on reactive admin tasks, allowing more time to focus on a proactive growth strategy

“The ability to fill out field tickets real-time, have the customer sign real-time, and be able to track it from its fruition through the final process was absolutely game-changing for our company,” said Kovac. “It used to take until the 15th or 16th of the following month to close out every ticket for the month, averaging approximately 85 to 90 tickets a month. Now, we’re able to have the month closed by the first or second using such things as workflow and being able to follow it from beginning to end.”

The Impact

Now that TE3CO has implemented GoCanvas to help with field operations and management, they’re able to save time and money by eliminating manual processes and having data that’s accessible for decision-making. 

“Once our technician fills out the ticket, there’s no more transferring of data. GoCanvas handles all that,” Kovac said. “Using reference data and integration data, you can have everything in a dropdown, so every person is filling out all the generic information the same way.” 

Software for the field service industry has the potential to make a significant impact on overall efficiency and productivity. Ensuring data is consistent, standard, and accessible can enable organizations to make more informed decisions. 

“I have five apps that are being brought into analytics. From there, I can break that down by district, by camp, by company – once it’s in, you can drill into it as far as you want to,” Kovac said. “The world is at your fingers, and the more information you can get for one of your customers, the better it is.”

Leveraging software built for the field, TE3CO has found they’re able to:

• Free up 20-30 man-hours/month 
• Save ~$60,000/year in resource efficiency 
• Identify leading indicators in 10 minutes vs. three days 
• Track tickets in real-time ticket 
• Reduce billing time 

“There’s so much that you can do when you have the proper information to know that you’re running your company properly and that you’re charging properly and taking care of your customers properly,” Kovac said. 

How GoCanvas Analytics Works

GoCanvas Analytics provides a seamless solution to report on submission data, visualize what’s happening, and distribute your findings throughout your organization. Drill down into one facet of your business or keep track of everything in a high-level view. Uncover trends and make data-driven decisions that result in improved productivity, cost savings, and increased revenue.

Chapter 4: 9 Common Misconceptions About Safety and Environmental Mobile Inspections

Working with thousands of companies, we know there can be a lot of confusion and misinformation about mobile data collection, especially for safety and environmental inspections. Below are ten of the most common misconceptions we hear and how mobile inspections actually work.

Misconception #1:

Our employees are not technically savvy. They rarely use or even send an email. We like the idea, but it will be too hard to implement here.

Over the past couple of years, GoCanvas has worked with thousands of organizations both large and small. Many of our customers are in safety positions. The beauty of mobile data collection with custom digital forms with GoCanvas is that it can be as easy as you’d like. You can create mobile forms as simple as our vehicle inspection form or our environmental controls inspection checklist. Your employees can have a digital experience that is simple, fast, and painless. 

Admittedly, some of our customers have had hesitation in this transition but were able to get through this. Their advice to other companies includes:

A. Start with a test group

Companies often use our free trial period to test out their digital data collection for any potential issues. Often, they will start with technologically savvy users and their complete opposites. Even during the trial, employees start seeing that GoCanvas makes their work faster and easier. Employees begin approaching management and ask to go mobile!

B. Integrate with your back-end system

People love easy-to-use technology. With GoCanvas, it’s easy to integrate your data with backend safety software and remove the job people hate most: data entry. One New England client says it best: 

“When employees get used to finding the data easily, they will ask, ‘Hey, what about this other safety checklist?’”

Not only will this mean your employees are free to do other tasks, but they also become advocates on your behalf.

Misconception #2:

We use a lot of different devices: Android tablets, iPhones, and even Blackberries! It’s just too complicated to deploy for our business.

This is a common concern, especially if you have been looking at custom mobile app development. Often, this will lock you into one platform, and can be difficult not only with a range of devices but also limits your future mobile strategy! 

With GoCanvas, we want to help you do business your way. So our platform works on iOS, Android, Blackberry, and some Windows devices. If you need a rugged device or a large tablet, you can still enjoy an intuitive and easy inspection experience with GoCanvas.

Misconception #3:

My team writes faster than they type. This will slow down our processes further.

Our data collection process can bypass the need for typing in several ways to make your inspections or surveys even faster. They include:

• Drop-down lists: providing a range of pre-written answers to fill in
• Checkboxes: click once, and all done. 
• Reference data: add your own information such as equipment information or location- or client-specific data, into forms to make your inspections faster and more accurate. 

On top of these powerful features at GoCanvas, many smartphones and tablets have the talk-to-text ability. So even if your users have to fill in descriptions, they can talk into their device, and it will transcribe for them.

In all, most of our customers find that mobile data collection takes less time, has fewer errors, and also allows them to capture more information than ever before.

Misconception #4:

I have team members in places where they can’t get the internet or Wi-Fi, so going mobile won’t work for our business.

This is a common issue for companies. GoCanvas understands that lots of companies have workers in remote places. Internet isn’t always available, especially in the safety industry. 

With GoCanvas, you don’t need to be connected to the internet to fill out forms. Once you have access to the internet, all your forms will be automatically submitted to the cloud.

Misconception #5:

We use many different carriers. I don’t have the time to figure out how it would work with each one.

Our emphasis on flexibility and ease of use has meant that we work with various carriers. We can work with any carrier in any country. We have customers in California, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and even Singapore! Our customers live and work in over 60 different countries and use over 100 different carrier networks. 

Wherever you are, whatever network you use, GoCanvas can work with you.

Misconception #6:

I like capturing data on mobile devices, but I don’t need information in the cloud. I need to integrate it into our other systems.

Being able to collect and store data quickly and efficiently is great, but we go far beyond easy information collection at GoCanvas. We have an open API, which allows customers to integrate their GoCanvas data with almost any software or database.

You can integrate with:

Google Drive	Google Calendar
Google Sheets	Dropbox
SMS Text Notification	PDF
Quickbooks Desktop	QuickBooks Online
SignNow	HubSpot
SQL	Asana
Slack	Salesforce
Sharepoint	Microsoft Teams

Misconception #7:

I’m too busy; I don’t have time to implement another program.

Transitioning to GoCanvas isn’t like other programs. Change an app and use it within the same hour to a prebuilt template and test drive it right away. No matter what industry you’re in, we have something to help you get started today. 

With years of helping thousands of companies transition, we’ve seen many companies fully implement GoCanvas well within the first 30 days. 

Misconception #8:

Building a mobile safety inspection app? I don’t have time to learn how to do that.

Our solution builder is simple to use. You don’t need to learn any coding or any HTML. Simply drag and drop the features you want. You can have a simple custom option in five minutes, or a more powerful data collection process in under an hour.

Still don’t have the time? No worries, we can convert your form for you. We’ll convert your first form into a custom option for free. Through the whole process you’ll have a point of contact keeping in touch, and ensuring that our solution fits your needs. Our product specialists are available via phone and email. We are always happy to answer any of your questions. 

Misconception #9:

Digital data collection will mean a strain on our data costs, making it

What kind of information will you be gathering? If you will be using simple text or checklists, our forms are as light as an average email. That’s light for data, and probably won’t affect your data costs. 

Want to use images or GPS? That can cause some additional use of data. However, GoCanvas is flexible and you can use it on Wi-Fi or offline. That can help reduce your use of data in the long run.

Conclusion

Compliance will always be a crucial part of your job. The rules and regulations aren’t going away. If anything, they’re becoming more complicated than ever. Today, you can make it easier for your company to gather, collect, and visualize this data. Digital transformation allows you to collect and use this information in real-time.

Unchain yourself from manual processes and start saving time and money today with GoCanvas. Send us your first form, and we’ll convert it into a mobile version for free.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.

Introduction:

As an owner or manager of a pest control business, you’re no stranger to the age-old problem confronted by every company whose employees work mostly in the field: How do you get the most out of your employees when you’re not physically present to supervise them? 

On one level, you have the same challenge that every mobile business does. Some employees simply lack the professionalism to work productively without supervision, and some fail to possess the people skills required to represent your business professionally to a diverse group of customers.

The U.S. will add nearly 13,000 new pest control workers by 2022, a growth rate of 20% a year. 

Your challenges are bigger

But that challenge may be even greater for you than it is in most other industries. First, the industry is growing quickly. The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the U.S. will add nearly 13,000 new pest control workers by 2022, a growth rate of 20 percent a year. Environmental and other factors have led to an explosion in recent years of certain kinds of pests, causing rapid expansion of businesses.

Also, your employees deal with dangerous chemicals that can and harm and kill. (Indeed, that’s what they’re supposed to do.) An improperly applied chemical in a customer’s home could hurt a pet or a human. In addition to being a tragedy, that could cost you your business, and more.

Pest control is dangerous work for technicians, too. Crawling underneath houses and through cluttered attics and basements, carrying heavy equipment, and confronting rodents and other animals are all in a day’s work for your employees.

Even when no one is harmed, and even when no improper application of a pesticide is made, any number of violations of federal or state regulations could cost you many thousands of dollars, or your license to operate.

How much of your business is in the hands of your staff?

Think about how much of your livelihood is in the hands of your pest control technicians. You trust your employees with more than just handling chemicals correctly and filling out every report as required. You also trust them to interact with your customers. So even if they’re doing the “pest control” part of their job right if they’re not also dealing well with the human side of your business, you could get bad ratings on online review sites and fail to get the word-of-mouth referrals that businesses like yours thrive on.

That’s why it is absolutely vital that your workers be fully trained and qualified, and that you continue to carefully monitor their work, even if you can’t be with them every day.

Step 1: Know the regulations — and follow them to the letter

Pest control companies must obey two regulatory masters. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency sets limits on what chemicals may be used under what circumstances. State regulators may ban or restrict the use of some substances that the federal government hasn’t, set licensing and training requirements for your techs and managers, and demand the maintenance of records concerning the use of chemical products.

It is your responsibility as the business license holder to make sure that your techs follow the regulations regarding the safe use of pesticides, as well as all the necessary record-keeping.

In most states, pest control companies are required to have at least one supervisor dedicated to those compliance requirements. For example, California requires that pest control companies have “at least one person in a supervisory position who holds a valid qualified applicator license at each principal and branch location.”

That’s not all, however. After becoming licensed, California (whose regulations are strict but not atypical) requires careful records management. Companies must: 

• Retain pest control application notification records for two years
• Retain records of pesticide use for two years
• Submit pesticide use reports to the county agricultural commissioner’s office in the county where the application was made
• Have valid permits for restricted materials used.

When chemical pesticides are applied, you must also know whether the pesticide is approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for general or restricted use.

General-use pesticides are the most widely used and are readily available. These are the products that the average consumer can pick up at a hardware store, albeit in diluted concentrations. Restricted use of pesticides is available only to certified professionals for controlling the most severe infestations. The EPA carefully regulates their registration, labeling, and application.

EPA compliance with the use of restricted pesticides remains a vital concern. You certainly don’t want to risk a citation or loss of a business license due to a violation. All the more reason to make sure you are clearly and consistently documenting the pesticides your company uses, and cross-checking them against approved chemicals. Approved chemicals vary by state, so be sure you are intimately familiar with your own state’s regulations.

Make sure you are clearly and consistently documenting the pesticides your company uses.

A quick review of cases showing violations of The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) makes it clear that transgressions can cost tens of thousands of dollars in fines and penalties, and even result in suspensions outright. For example:

• In Oregon, one company was fined more than $50,000 for using outdated labeling on its pesticide products
• Also in Oregon, the federal government filed charges against a pest control company whose illegal use of pesticides led to the death of a homeowner
• In Arizona, a pest control company’s improper production of a pesticide led to a fine by the federal government, and could have landed the company in more serious trouble with its state regulator. 

In most cases, violations such as those cited above are the result of actions taken by employees who either didn’t have or didn’t follow their training, and supervisors who weren’t paying close enough attention. Although requirements vary by state, training isn’t optional. Techs on your staff must have completed about three months of coursework, then pass a written exam.

Many states also require that licensed techs earn a certain number of continuing education credits each year in order to maintain their certification. It’s vital, therefore, that you not rely solely on a tech’s license as proof that he or she is qualified to work for your company, and doing the job well.

Your employees are required to complete detailed reports on what they are applying for, so be sure that you are paying attention to that paperwork. In addition to being required, those documents provide important insight into what your techs are doing throughout the day and can serve as one basis for your conversations with them.

Step 2: Hire qualified staff and train them properly

For your company to succeed, however, your employees must do much more than what’s minimally required by regulation. Today, perhaps more than ever, consumers are knowledgeable and concerned about their exposure to anything that strikes them as “unnatural,” including harsh chemical pesticides, so your techs need to be comfortable talking in layman’s terms about every product they use.

So that means hiring staff who have both technical know-how and the so-called soft skills of customer relationship management. According to researchers at MyMajors.com, which analyzes the skills and attributes individuals need to succeed professionally, the best pest control technicians possess a wide range of competencies, including:

• Critical thinking; the ability to logically evaluate problems and weigh solutions against one another
• Time management, because your techs must work efficiently to service all of your customers
• Effective speaking and writing, because techs must be able to communicate clearly with customers, regulators, and you
• Active Listening is a crucial element of effective communication. Techs who fail to pay close attention to what property owners tell them about their pest problems and treatment preferences may not have the information necessary to solve the problem.

Techs also need the technical know-how in chemistry, of course, and must be cooperative, dependable, able to tolerate stress and function with a high level of integrity.

So, in addition to ensuring that your techs have the proper applicator training and certification, they must also receive instruction on customer relationship management. It’s best to pair your new techs with seasoned veterans, so they can train their new colleagues on how your company handles customer communications, and be sure they’re handling their chemicals correctly.

Make sure your employees communicate with customers

When you fail to fully and clearly explain everything the homeowner needs to know about products being applied in their home — including what the product is, how it works, how long it will be active, all potential risks to human or animal health, everything the homeowner should do to mitigate those risks, and any available alternatives — the results can be catastrophic, for both your customer and your business.

Take the story of one Washington, D.C.-area woman who suffered extreme health problems immediately after a pest control technician sprayed a flea treatment in her home. During months of recuperation, she researched the chemical that had been used.

“First I found the pesticide label online, with its information about using the product properly,” she wrote in The Washington Post. “What this told me was that the technician had not given me enough information. The label instructs users to cover all food-processing surfaces, utensils and exposed food prior to spraying. We hadn’t been told to do anything like that.”

She detailed other mistakes that the technician made in both the application of the product and his communication about the product to her — mistakes egregious enough to cost a pest control company thousands of dollars and to expose it to a big liability risk.

And while it’s important to be fully transparent about the possible negative effects of products you’re using, it’s just as necessary to manage customer expectations.

Not every treatment works the first time. And even if it does, some pests can easily return, especially if property owners aren’t educated about how to do their part in preventing recurrences. For example, most people know that keeping a clean home is an important step in preventing bugs and rodents. But most don’t know that moisture also attracts pests, so fixing a leaky faucet and making sure downspouts direct water away from the home are important actions for the homeowner to take as well.

How effectively do your techs communicate?

The U.S. EPA recommends that consumers should not hire a pest control company that doesn’t detail a pest control plan. That plan should include: 

• Pests to be controlled 
• The extent of the problem 
• Active ingredient(s) in the pesticide chosen 
• Potential adverse health effects and typical symptoms of poisoning associated with the active ingredients 
• Form of the pesticide and application techniques
• Non-chemical alternatives available 
• Special instructions to reduce the property owner’s exposure to the pesticide
• Steps to take to minimize pest problems in the future

Make sure your techs are providing all of this information, plus cost estimates, in writing. Have the customer sign this document to confirm their receipt. And be aware that today’s health-minded consumers will still have plenty of questions, including:

• What’s known about the health effects of exposure to the substance you propose to use, especially for kids?
• Will it hurt my pets? 
• Will I have to leave my home? 
• Should I throw away all my food? 
• For how long will the substance be active or potent in my home or garden? 
• What natural or non-chemical treatments might be available instead?

Step 3: Communicate frequently

Sustaining ongoing contact with employees in the field is a big part of any business that’s always on the move. You should meet with each of your techs regularly — once a week is best — to review their experiences on the job.

Review all the reports they have filed prior to those conversations. In addition to detailed pest control plans and summaries of treatments they provided at each customer site, those documents should also include brief customer satisfaction surveys that your techs should be administering to customers at the end of each service appointment.

Have a list of questions ready for staff during each of these conversations. 

These might include:

• What was the highlight of your week, and why? 
• What was the most difficult thing you dealt with this week? 
• What surprised you this week?
• Were any of your customers particularly challenging to deal with? How did you handle it?
• Tell me about any difficult pest-management issues that you handled this week.
• Was there anything you confronted this week that you felt under-prepared for?

Ongoing contact with employees in the field is a big part of any business that’s always on the move.

In short, your conversations should focus on both the technical side of your techs’ work, as well as the people management side. 

Step 4: Make it easier on your techs by going digital

In the past, one of the most difficult aspects of managing mobile pest-control employees has been the sheer volume of paperwork that they generate. But today you can maintain electronic versions of all the critical documents they need on smartphones or tablets. This lets you take command of just about every data point in a service cycle, and easily capture detailed information that can improve everything from pest-control plan development to compliance with EPA rules on pesticide storage to accurate billing. 

The days of a technician having to keep a file box of essential forms in his van are over; everything can be accessed, updated, and saved electronically to a centralized database, making management infinitely easier. That makes it easier for your techs to complete necessary documents while relieving them of the burden of having to keep track of paperwork themselves.

Consider, for example, the typical series of pest control plans and reports a technician or supervisor is charged with maintaining. The traditional approach might be to pull out a paper file for each of these required documents, sit behind the steering wheel with a clipboard, and complete

Everything can be accessed, updated, and saved electronically to a centralized database, making management infinitely easier.

each page by hand. Some techs might even wait until they were back at the home office and make that paperwork an end-of-day (or worse, wait-until-tomorrow) priority.

Now, however, a company manager can give techs a suite of mobile apps, specifically tailored to the information management needs of your company.

Integrated pest management strategies are key

Today, dealing with unwanted pests means a lot more than simply spraying poison or setting traps. Integrated pest management strategies have become the cornerstone of the business. These strategies detail not only the plan for eradicating pests but also for preventing their return.

It makes sense that technology should stay in step with that strategy, and even improve its execution. Any solid pest control pro knows that implementing an effective integrated pest management strategy is going to differ from pest to pest. That’s why you should have a good checklist to help select the right pest-specific strategy, and then make sure you follow it to the letter can save time and keep efforts on target.

Make your employees — and company — tech-savvy 

Electronic records management is also an important part of your communication with your techs — and their communication with customers. You can more easily recall and review your techs’ documentation when those documents are stored electronically, and you can both review key documents together during your conversations. 

And when your tech is on-site at a customer’s property, he or she can easily use a phone or tablet to retrieve all of that customer’s records. That makes it simple for the tech to remind the customer of what’s been done so far and what still needs to be done, while at the same time entering any new information.

Finally, be sure that your staff is delivering invoices to your customers at the time of service appointment. And as we’ve explained previously, while it’s your option to accept payment later, there’s really no reason that your techs can’t process payment on the spot.

You’re already ready 

Think about the number of employees you have who already use smartphones and tablets. According to Pew Research, 77 percent of Americans own smartphones. It just makes sense that you take advantage of a booming trend in technological usage to better run your pest control company, improve worker performance, and optimize profitability.

Today’s business-based mobile apps, whether ready-made or custom-built for your specific needs, are giving pest control pros unprecedented control over everything from schedule coordination to chemical compliance concerns to customer billing and outreach. GoCanvas offers 220 mobile apps specific to the pest control industry, each one designed to eliminate excess paperwork and provide a more effective means of workforce management. You can try any or all of them for free for a full 30 days — plenty of time to see what kind of impact an optimized mobile workforce can have on your business.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.