Text messaging for home services

Trades lose more time to communication than to the work. A two-hour arrival window becomes three phone calls. An estimate goes out and disappears. A customer is not home, and a van has driven across town for nothing.

Almost all of that is a messaging problem, and text solves it because it does not require anyone to answer a phone.

“On the way” is the highest-value message you send

Telling a customer the technician has left and will arrive between one and three does two things. It stops the calls asking where the technician is, and it gives the customer a chance to say “actually I need to move this” while you can still reallocate the slot.

If you only ever send one kind of message, send this one.

Estimates that went quiet

Most quotes are not rejected. They are forgotten. A short follow-up asking whether there are questions before booking it in recovers a meaningful share of them, and it is far less awkward by text than by phone.

Seasonal service

Furnace checks before the cold, gutter clearing before the rain, AC service before the first hot week. These are predictable, they are easy to group by last service date, and customers are genuinely glad to be reminded.

Replies come back to the office

The customer replies to the same number that texted them, and it lands in a shared inbox rather than on one technician’s personal phone. That matters when the person who sent the message is under a sink.

Consent

Customers opt in when they book, or by texting a keyword. STOP is handled automatically. See how opting out works. You buy credits, and a slow winter costs you nothing.