Your phone rings at 3 PM on a Thursday. It's Mrs. Johnson from the residential account you've serviced for two years. She sounds panicked.

"There's a family of raccoons in my attic, and I can hear them scratching around at night. Can you help me?"

You pause. You know this isn't your specialty because you don't have wildlife removal equipment, licensing, or experience. So you do what most pest control operators do with pest control wildlife calls.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson. You'll need to call animal control for that."

You just turned a loyal customer into a frustrated one, missed a revenue opportunity, and sent her into a maze of bureaucratic dead ends. Meanwhile, there's a better way that smart pest control companies are using to turn these calls into profit.

The Hidden Revenue in Pest Control Wildlife Calls

Most pest control companies treat wildlife calls as interruptions. They're outside your wheelhouse, require different licensing, and need specialized equipment you don't have.

But here's what most operators don't realize: pest control wildlife calls represent some of the highest-value opportunities in the home service industry.

The average wildlife removal job is worth $300-$800. Emergency calls during the breeding season can reach $1,200-$2,000. These aren't small-ticket maintenance calls; they're urgent problems that customers will pay premium prices to solve immediately.

When you tell customers to "call animal control," you're sending them into a frustrating system that rarely helps. Animal control departments are overwhelmed, underfunded, and typically only handle aggressive animals or public safety issues. A family of raccoons in a private residence? That's not their priority.

Your customer calls animal control, gets put on hold, and eventually learns they don't handle nuisance wildlife on private property. Now they're back to Google, searching for wildlife removal companies and questioning whether you really understand the home service industry.

Meanwhile, you missed an opportunity to strengthen your customer relationship and generate additional revenue from a call that cost you nothing to receive.

Smart pest control companies have figured out how to capture value from these calls instead of just turning them away.

What Smart Pest Control Companies Are Discovering

📊 $50M+ Revenue Generated for Pros

📊 400k+ Referrals Completed

📊 800+ Companies in Network

Forward-thinking pest control operators have discovered how to turn pest control wildlife calls into exclusive referral revenue while providing better customer service than the "call animal control" dead end.

They're not expanding into wildlife removal themselves or investing in new equipment and licensing. Instead, they're monetizing these calls through vetted referral networks that connect customers with qualified wildlife professionals.

"Every year, our inside sales department receives 2,000+ non-qualified leads and in the past, we had nowhere to send these callers other than back to a Google search. Not only does Baton give us a payout for every referral we send them, but we now have a phone number to provide our non-leads with."— Alta Pest Control

This approach transforms pest control wildlife calls from interruptions into revenue opportunities that strengthen customer relationships and generate ongoing referral income.

How Professional Wildlife Referrals Work

Here's how smart pest control companies are handling wildlife calls now. Instead of turning customers away, they're turning these conversations into revenue opportunities.

When you get a pest control wildlife call, here's what happens:

• Your office manager says "We don't handle wildlife removal directly, but I can connect you with a qualified wildlife specialist referred by trusted professionals who can solve this problem today" • You pass the lead through a vetted referral network to a licensed wildlife removal company 

• The customer gets professional service from a qualified specialist within 24 hours 

• You get paid a referral fee for the connection

Let me give you a concrete example. Mrs. Johnson calls about raccoons in her attic. It's a $650 wildlife removal job, but you don't do wildlife work. Instead of turning her away, you refer her through the network.

A licensed wildlife removal specialist takes the job and starts service the same day. You get $65 for each referral. Mrs. Johnson gets her problem fixed by a qualified professional who knows how to handle it.

That's $65 you earned from a call that would have normally generated $0. More importantly, you provided a real solution instead of sending a loyal customer into a bureaucratic maze.

Compare that to your current approach: "Sorry, you need to call animal control." Mrs. Johnson spends two hours on hold, gets no help, and eventually finds a wildlife company through Google. You get nothing, and she questions your industry knowledge.

The difference isn't just the $65 referral fee. When you provide a helpful referral to a qualified professional instead of a dead end, you're demonstrating that you care about solving her problems even when you can't handle them directly.

This kind of service builds customer loyalty and generates word-of-mouth referrals. Customers remember companies that go the extra mile to help them, even when the work is outside their specialty.

The professional referral approach doesn't just create new revenue from pest control wildlife calls, it actually strengthens your market position by showing you're connected to a network of trusted professionals.

How One Pest Control Company Turned Wildlife Calls Into $3,600 Annual Revenue

Take Sarah's pest control company in suburban Atlanta. She runs efficient routes and has built a solid residential customer base, but she regularly gets pest control wildlife calls that she used to turn away.

Before joining a referral network, Sarah handled wildlife calls the standard way: "You'll need to call animal control or search for a wildlife removal company." The results were predictable: frustrated customers, missed revenue, and no benefit from calls her marketing had generated.

Now when she gets pest control wildlife calls, her team refers them to vetted wildlife removal specialists in the Atlanta area.

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 Last year alone:

• 18 raccoon removal jobs = $1,170 in referral fees

• 12 bat exclusion services = $960 in referral fees 

• 8 squirrel removal calls = $520 in referral fees 

• 6 snake removal emergencies = $390 in referral fees 

• 4 opossum removal jobs = $260 in referral fees 

• 2 bird nest removal services = $130 in referral fees

Total additional revenue: $3,430 from pest control wildlife calls that used to generate $0. These weren't fake inquiries or low-quality contacts, they were real customers with real wildlife problems that generated actual referral revenue.

But here's the bonus: four of those referred customers called back later asking if Sarah's company could handle ongoing pest prevention services for the properties where wildlife removal was completed. That generated another $1,200 in recurring annual revenue.

The professional referral approach didn't just create new revenue from pest control wildlife calls, it actually generated future business opportunities through cross-selling with wildlife removal work.

Sarah's not unique. Pest control companies across Georgia, Florida, and Texas are using this same approach to turn wildlife calls into revenue opportunities while providing better customer service.

Why Vetting Matters for Wildlife Referrals

Here's the thing about pest control wildlife calls: your reputation is on the line with every referral you make. When you refer someone to a customer for wildlife removal, you're essentially endorsing their work and professionalism.

At Baton, we know that a pest control company's reputation is their most valuable asset. If you're not sure that referring a customer to a wildlife removal company will help your business, don't do it.

That's why we check out all of our wildlife removal partners very carefully. Every business in our vetted network has to go through:

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First Check: 

• Licensing and insurance checks for wildlife removal in the states where they work

• Checking the online reputation of a business that has at least four stars on Google 

• Getting recommendations from other members of the network 

• Making sure that the business follows humane wildlife removal practices

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Ongoing Quality Control: 

• Call tracking to make sure interactions are professional and quick

• Direct consumer feedback through SMS surveys after each referral
• Payment integrity monitoring to make sure referring companies get paid 

• Service quality verification to keep network standards high 

• Respect for existing business relationships through our Pledge to Protect

This isn't the same as giving customers a random phone number you found online and hoping for the best. You're putting them in touch with wildlife removal experts who have been checked out, watched over, and held responsible for keeping your good name.

When the customer gets great service from your wildlife referral, they remember that you made the connection. When they need pest control services, or when their neighbors ask for recommendations, your company name comes up.

Bad referrals damage relationships. Good referrals build them. Baton's vetting process makes sure that you only connect customers with wildlife removal companies that will make your business look good and help you build stronger relationships with your customers.

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Are you ready to start making money from wildlife calls?

Join our network of over 800 trusted companies that are turning pest control wildlife calls into money-making opportunities while also giving better customer service.

[JOIN BATON TODAY]

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