Every call your pest control company receives from a prospective customer could be worth thousands in revenue—inspections, treatments and exterminations, follow-up work, and prevention add up fast. Like other home services, pest control professionals rely heavily on phone inquiries for lead generation. A 2024 survey by Invoca found that a majority of home services consumers prioritize making calls over filling out forms—across service types, 62% prefer to call the business.
Top 3 Call-Handling Mistakes in Pest Control Lead Generation
Across the country, pest control markets are highly competitive, so the ability to convert callers into customers is absolutely crucial to growth. But pest control lead gen is challenging, no doubt about it, and every day, pest control companies let opportunities slip away in three main ways:
- Letting calls go to voicemail.
Listen, we get it. You’re busy doing the actual pest control, so voicemail sounds like a reasonable solution to capture incoming calls. Yet the sum of voicemails captured on any day may not reflect the actual number of potential new customers who reached out. Read: you can’t follow up with leads you never knew called in the first place. Research suggests that in 2025, businesses miss 34–40% of incoming calls daily. The home services industry fares better than average, but still misses about 27% of inbound calls. - Waiting too long to return calls.
Many pest control leads can be classified as “high-intent” customers, meaning they call with a sense of urgency and a desire to speak with a representative immediately. Because your lead is moving quickly and likely attempted to reach a competitor right after reaching your voicemail, you’ve got a very small window for follow-up. With each passing minute, let alone hour or even day, your ability to reach and close the opportunity diminishes. Around 60% of prospect phone leads move on to other providers if not answered as quickly as they’d like. And don’t bank on your branding to keep you at the top of their providers list—roughly 80% of prospects try once and don’t call back. - Inefficient intake or poor customer service.
Poor phone intake can include missed calls and delayed (or non-existent) follow-ups, but that’s not all that’s costing you pest control leads. Inefficient intake processes, poor scripting, and unprepared or unfriendly phone reps can also drive away leads and cost you potential revenue. On one hand, you answered! That’s already setting you up for success. On the other hand, intake calls represent a critical first impression and must strike a delicate balance—data shows that 76% of customers abandon a company after just one poor experience. Too few questions and you risk miscommunications, poor services, and friction down the line. Too many questions and the customer loses steam, gets irritated, questions if your business is the right choice for them.
Phone-Handling For Pest Pros: Best Practices
Do those core mistakes sound familiar to you? The good news is that turning it around is pretty straight-forward. Start by answering the phone. Easy enough! You may be considering outside answering services as a solution—while this may relieve some business owners of the phone burden, it’s not a realistic or optimal option for everyone. Carefully weigh the cost of the service with your call volume and actual revenue for that channel. Also consider your existing customer base and the type of customers you hope to attract—if they appreciate your personal, hands-on approach to intake and customer communication, they’re likely to be frustrated by the implementation of a robotic or impersonal answering system.
The most basic solution to converting more leads is simply to take more calls yourself, at your office or HQ. It may feel like a small effort in the moment, but those one-off conversions stack up quickly and can make all the difference in your annual revenue.
Once you’re staged and ready to pick up before the second ring, take it a step further. Optimize your call-handling practices, intake process, and general customer service. Here are three best practices to implement immediately:
- Ask for a caller’s name.
According to Salesforce, 84% of people said being treated like a person rather than a number is crucial to winning their business, and one of the simplest ways to do this is to ask for a caller’s name and use it during a conversation. This can be scripted into an answering system or for use by a third party call-handler, but you really don’t have control over how often the caller’s name is used, or how personable and friendly the answerer is. It’s also likely the first field on your internal intake form—you just ticked off an essential question before the call has even really kicked off! - Minimize wait time for callers on hold.
According to Velaro, 60% of people will hang up after one minute on hold. And for pest control leads specifically, 85% of callers never call back if they hang up or their call is missed. So, if you can’t immediately speak with a potential new customer and must place them on hold, make it your absolute priority to resume the call as soon as possible. take their call as soon as possible. If you absolutely must place a caller on hold, it’s best to answer first and ask permission to place them on hold.
- In this scenario your impulse may be to answer with “[Your Pest Control Company], please hold,” but that robotic and distracted phrasing doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the caller, who is likely facing a pressing pest issue. Create a friendly company greeting anyone who answers the phone can use, something along the lines of “ABC Pest Control. Do you mind if I put you on a brief hold?” Then wait for their reply. Callers do not enjoy being on hold, so we won’t fib by telling you this mitigates any negative feelings, but this minute change can make all the difference in your relationship with the caller. Subtly and quickly let them know you’re considerate of their feelings and are invested in their needs by checking with them first.
- If you’re unable to minimize wait time for a particular lead, resume the call every few minutes to apologize, let them know they have not been forgotten, and give them options like continuing to hold or scheduling a call-back later.
- In this scenario your impulse may be to answer with “[Your Pest Control Company], please hold,” but that robotic and distracted phrasing doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the caller, who is likely facing a pressing pest issue. Create a friendly company greeting anyone who answers the phone can use, something along the lines of “ABC Pest Control. Do you mind if I put you on a brief hold?” Then wait for their reply. Callers do not enjoy being on hold, so we won’t fib by telling you this mitigates any negative feelings, but this minute change can make all the difference in your relationship with the caller. Subtly and quickly let them know you’re considerate of their feelings and are invested in their needs by checking with them first.
- Ask to book the inspection or service.
When you send a marketing email or publish a webpage, you call users to take a specific action—”click here to book”; “schedule your inspection”; “contact us via this form.” You want to be crystal clear on the intended action of that channel and make it as easy as possible to take said action. The same concept applies to phone leads. Like we’ve noted, pest control leads are often high-intent, meaning they are ready to choose and hire a service provider. But that doesn’t cover everyone. Some prospects are in the discovery phase, gathering info from across the industry so they can make the most informed decision they can. Your job is to provide the information they need while also guiding them toward a clear next step, whether that’s booking the service, scheduling a follow-up call, or simply collecting enough details to keep them in your sales pipeline. The goal is to help every caller. And in doing so, make sure you gather just enough to prep the tech, set expectations, and secure the job—without turning the call into an interrogation.
- For those who do opt for third party answering services, lean heavily on custom scripts and (beta-tested), tight feedback loops, and robust oversight to ensure nothing’s broken in your intake process.
- For those who do opt for third party answering services, lean heavily on custom scripts and (beta-tested), tight feedback loops, and robust oversight to ensure nothing’s broken in your intake process.
Industry Insights and Lead Gen Tips From Your Pest Control Pros
Through our work over the years, we’ve noticed that many small pest control providers lack structured, multi-touch lead processes, which means potential revenue is quietly slipping through the cracks. Missed calls, poor follow-ups, and disorganized intake routines create compounding lead and revenue losses over time.
But a few simple, strategic changes can help you not only convert more of the callers you do speak with, but also recapture business you never realized you were losing. Take your phone from a ringing beast of burden to a lead-generating engine.
Key Takeaways
- Phone calls remain central for pest control and home services—over 60% of potential customers prefer them.
- Call abandonment is a major issue, with around one in three calls missed—meaning often hundreds of missed leads monthly.
- A single missed call can cost $100–$250+, and companies can lose hundreds of thousands annually.
- Most missed callers won’t come back, and many will go to competitors immediately.
Best Practices & Solutions
- Answer the phone whenever possible—don’t rely on voicemail.
- Follow up with missed calls quickly (ideally within minutes).
- Track every missed call, not just voicemails, to understand real revenue impact.
- Optimize scripting to be friendly, efficient, and conversion-focused.
- Collect only the info needed to form a connection and prep techs and secure the job.
- Minimize hold times and check in regularly if delays are unavoidable.
- Always ask to book the service, or at least schedule a follow-up.
- Treat every caller like a person—use their name, be helpful, and set expectations clearly.
If your phone conversion rates are in need of a little TLC, let’s see how we can help! You know where to find us.
Hannah Bollman is Nifty’s talented and dynamic Content & Brand Manager. She develops compelling content across blogs, newsletters, social media, and ad campaigns, ensuring alignment with Nifty’s voice and mission. With a background in SEO, content marketing, and stand-up, Hannah brings a unique mix of creativity, strategy, and humor to everything she does. When she’s not shaping Nifty’s brand or growing visibility for our clients, she’s on a run, on her bike, or enjoying a delicious falafel sandwich.
