Commercial pest control deals can take many months if not years to pay off. They are normally not one time visits. Many teams have the issue of losing leads when they get in contact for the first time, and end up forgetting to respond back. A simple system can be used to fix this, but requires discipline nevertheless. You should capture every inquiry that comes in, respond fast, and work older inquiries/quotes each week. This habit can help turn forgotten prospects into first-meetings, scheduled walkthroughs, and create new contracts.
Start With Intake and Logging
The commercial side of pest control often comes through long term contracts and not single jobs. One industry report found that 95.5% of commercial pest control revenue came from annual contracts. Like many other service based businesses, commercial pest control companies also struggle to log inbound leads properly, follow up consistently, and stay in touch with potential clients. A secret shopper study of 466 U.S home service companies (similar to pest control) from Valve and Meter found that 40% never responded at all to a request on their website and most weren’t using any tools to track inquiries or follow ups. These studies show that logging leads and following up are critical to booking new contracts.
When it comes to new prospects, booking by phone is still the most popular route. Pest Control Technology (PCT) wrote that new booking mainly comes from phone calls, and that 85% of missed callers will not call back. The same report noted that complex phone menus cut engagement to about 45%, and that most callers drop off before they reach a person.
So the first step in turning forgotten leads into customers is to reduce friction and make sure they are not forgotten at the point of entry. Specifically here are some things to try.
- Answer calls live and simplify the phone menu. Based on PCT’s research, it is recommended to simplify the phone menu since almost half will drop off if it’s too complicated. For commercial accounts, route as many calls as possible straight to a person or to a very short menu with a clear press “1” for a new service or inquiry option.
- Treat missed calls like emergencies. It is important to call back immediately if you missed a call. If you call back within 2 minutes, then they’re very likely to continue engagement about what you can offer before they call a competitor. If you can’t follow up, create a text messaging system where you send an automated “we missed you text” so they have something to respond to.
- Log every inquiry in your CRM the moment it comes in. Your CRM should be where every inquiry and quote you get is recorded. This includes every possible path such as phone calls, web forms, or email. Everything should be tracked from first inquiry through to service and up to renewals. Create some fields in your CRM that capture this. This could include:
- Company Name
- Contact Name/Role
- Site Address
- Pest Issue
- Trigger
- Urgency
- How they Found you
- Current Status
- Date
- Next Step Notes
- Track missed calls and follow through on each one. Every week check the total inbound calls, missed calls, percentage returned within a couple minutes, and how many became site visits (tools such as Lead Forensics can be used) or contracts. After you review these calculations weekly, check how much of it is potential revenue.
Create a system that helps you answer calls quickly, keeps callers away from dead or tedious menus, and never forget to log every inquiry in your CRM. Your CRM could be as simple as a Google Sheets document or be a commercial CRM with automated capabilities. This will help log all the data before you create follow up campaigns. If your CRM is in Google Sheets, you can always quickly verify which emails are still deliverable before you send any follow ups using a simple workflow.
Give Every New Inquiry or Quote a Consistent Follow Up
Commercial buyers don’t wait to find a pest control company. What they normally do is search what they’re looking for online, call 2 or 3 providers, and go with whoever responds first and give them clear next steps. Data from the case studies show that companies that do win the contracts are the ones that respond very quickly and use very effective follow up sequences.
Pocomos, a pest control software provider, suggests that teams use “speed-to-lead” as a metric to track efficiency. For example, respond to every new lead in under 5 minutes whenever possible, and then mix calls, SMS, and email over the next 24-48 hours. This is because many clients choose the first professional response they get. Leadferno’s case study on Bug Zapper Pest Control shows what this looks like in practice. They replied to 65% of prospects within 30 minutes. This allowed them to grow past 2,500 customers and double their customer retention rate.
Since the majority of callers never call back, the best practice should be to call back as quickly as possible or send a text message. Based on the data, here’s an example of a follow up routine you can use if you can’t reach a prospect on time.
- 0-5 minutes: Answer live if possible. If you miss a call or get someone you filled out a web form send an SMS like this:
- Hi [Name], thanks for reaching out about commercial pest control for [business type]. We can definitely help with this. Is now a good time for a quick call or is there a time that works better for you today?
- Within 30-60 minutes: If they haven’t responded yet you can place a call and leave a short voicemail with a clear action such as “Call us back or reply to this text with a time that works for you”. Make sure to follow up with email by providing an email that recaps what you offer and some time windows for an inspection or a walkthrough.
- End of Day 1: You can touch base one more time through the channel that they contacted you through. Make sure to keep it simple and to let them know you can hold a specific slot
- Day 2-3: For prospects who left an open quote you can do one more call and an email. Share something that matters to commercial buyers specifically and ask through a “yes/no” if they are still interested in moving forward.
- Day 7-10: If they haven’t responded then you can move them into your newsletter or a quarterly SMS. These messages would focus around what you provide or could be geared towards seasonal trends.
This system revolves around every inquiry/quote following the same documented pattern. It reduces inefficiency and helps build structure.
Work Forgotten Leads Every Week
Targeted and segmented follow ups are one of the most reliable ways to grow revenue from people who already know about you. Innovate Pest Control used automated and personalized email campaigns tied to the service history of clients. It helped them increase their average monthly billings per customer by 122% with open rates around 50-60% on their targeted email campaigns. HomeTeam Pest Defense, another pest control company, built a long term program from people who were interested but didn’t need service and managed to have an average 62% email open rate on a list of about 450,000 subscribers, which was driven by seasonal and location specific content.
Normal open rates are around 18-20%, which shows that a personalized touch and staying relevant to prospects can even increase normal rates.
In your CRM you should first define what a forgotten lead is. This should be based on your experience but here is an example:
- Reached out 30-180 days ago
- Has a status such as, estimate sent, proposal sent, one-time job, no decision
- Has no upcoming services scheduled and hasn’t been in touch for at least 14 days
This is what you would define as your forgotten leads pool. These are people who reached out, understood the issue they were dealing with, showed interest, but then didn’t get back. Once this structure is set in place you can segment them to maximize the chance of hearing back. Here is an example of how this could be done.
- By customer type (commercial vs residential)
- By problem/service history
- The issue they contacted you about
- Any one-time work you’ve already done for them
- By location and season
- Different seasons drive different risk profiles
- Target different locations based on which pests are active
Segment your prospects in a way that seems consistent for you. The main goal is to increase the chance of hearing back.
The case studies emphasized the importance of triggered multi-step sequences instead of one-time blasts. For each section in your forgotten leads pool you could follow up like this.
- Touch 1. You contacted us a while back about [pest issue/facility]. Did you end up getting this issue fixed at [site name], or would you like a fresh look?
- Touch 2. Follow up 3-5 days later going over what’s at stake for their facility type such as audit findings, or product loss and a something that allows
- Touch 3. For high value prospects you can send a specific offer 10 days later. Some examples include “Dock and dumpster rodent review before peak season” or “Contract comparison before your renewal date”.
Instead of sending generic reminders, you're using short follow up sequences aligned with the issues they’re facing. This follows the same structure as successful pest control companies found in these case studies.
Conclusion
This is meant to be used as a long term approach that increases efficiency. Every inquiry and quote should be logged in your CRM, and follow ups should be intentional. These are high urgency prospects because they directly affect your long term revenue. The best way to stay disciplined is to set aside time each week for someone on your team to review prospects that you haven't heard back from. Pull each one into your filter and determine what they are most interested in and update the record in the CRM appropriately. This creates a system that's proven to work and saves both time and money over the long run.
