Resources
Common Terms
A glossary of the industry, billing, Blu Star and technical terms you'll meet.
The words you'll hear
Pest control has its own language, and so does software. Here are the terms you'll meet while choosing, setting up and running Blu Star, grouped so you can find them quickly.
If a term isn't here, ask us. We'll explain it, and add it.
Pest control industry terms
- Integrated Pest Management (IPM): An approach to pest control that puts prevention, monitoring and targeted treatment first, to keep pesticide use to what's needed.
- General pest control: Service for common household pests like ants, spiders, cockroaches and rodents.
- Rodent control: Managing rodent activity, typically with traps, bait and exclusion.
- Exclusion: Keeping pests out of a structure by sealing the cracks, gaps and other ways in.
- Pesticide application: The controlled use of pesticides to eliminate or control pests.
- Safety Data Sheet (SDS): A document describing a product's hazards and how to handle and use it safely.
- Bait station: A secured station holding bait for rodents or termites, checked on a schedule or monitored remotely.
- Inspection point: Anything a technician checks and records on each visit: a device, a station, a zone, or a space inside a tenant's unit.
- WDI/WDO report: A wood-destroying insect (or organism) inspection report, usually needed when a home is sold.
- Threshold: The level of pest activity, over a set period, at which action is needed.
Billing and pricing
- Per-user pricing: A price based on the number of people who use the software.
- Monthly subscription: A recurring monthly payment for the software.
- Agreement term: How long you commit for. Blu Star's agreement runs for one year, then month to month.
- Onboarding (implementation) cost: The one-time cost of setting the software up for your company.
- Data conversion: Moving your records from your current system into new software. With Blu Star it's part of onboarding, and its cost is built into the onboarding price.
- Add-on products: Products you can add to your plan, like route optimization or GPS tracking.
- AutoPay: Payments taken automatically by card or ACH on a schedule the customer agrees to.
- Prepay: A customer paying for service in advance.
- Billing frequency: How often a customer is invoiced. In Blu Star it doesn't have to match how often they're serviced.
Blu Star features and products
- Tru Partner™: Blu Star's approach to working with its customers: personal service, ongoing guidance, and building the software together. More about Tru Partner
- Maxwell: Blu Star's assistant, which answers your team's questions from your own documents.
- Orion: Route optimization that lays out each technician's month of orders in minutes.
- GPSlogix: GPS fleet tracking: live vehicle locations, alerts, fuel and repairs.
- Compass: Reports and dashboards that put your key numbers in front of you.
- Pulsar: Remote monitoring: sensors at stations report activity, so technicians check them when needed.
- Arcturus: Termite work in one record: the drawing, findings, bait stations and WDI/WDO report.
- Apex QA: A quality assurance program you can sell to commercial customers, with results in their portal.
- Customer portal: Where customers see their service history and invoices, pay online and make requests.
- Tech portal: Blu Star's web portal for technicians, alongside Blu Star Mobile.
- Virtual logbook: The service records, conditions and documents for each site, online.
- Planner Map: Drag-and-drop scheduling on a map, honoring set appointments and morning or afternoon windows.
- Best Fit: Finds the best place in the schedule for a new order, with the least extra driving, including the nearest vehicle with GPSlogix.
- On My Way: A text to the customer that the technician is on the way, with an ETA and map.
- Review request: A request for an online review, sent to a happy customer from the field.
- Guided tour: A walkthrough that helps new users learn their way around Blu Star.
Technical terms
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Software that manages your customers, their service, billing and communication.
- ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning): A system that ties together finance, inventory, people and other business processes.
- Cloud-based: Software hosted on remote servers and used over the internet, with nothing to install or maintain.
- Database: An organized store of data. Blu Star's can be restored to any point in the past ten years.
- Integration: Connecting Blu Star with another system, like a payment processor or GPS, so data flows between them.
- Offline sync: Working without a signal, then sending everything to the office once the connection is back.
- Barcode scanning: Recording a device or station by scanning its barcode, with a Bluetooth scanner or a phone's camera.
Keep reading
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