ElectricalBossPro Blog — Commercial Accounts

Service Requests From Property Managers: From a Text or Form to a Scheduled Job

Property managers do not send work orders on a schedule. A tenant calls about a dead outlet at 8am, a maintenance tech finds a flickering hallway light at noon, and the owner wants a quote on parking lot lighting by Friday. Each of those becomes a request to you, and how easily a manager can send it decides how much of their work you get.

Requests Come From Everywhere

Turnover lists are one kind of request, covered in Turnover Electrical Work Between Tenants: Fast Jobs When a Unit Changes Hands. Everyday service requests are the other, and they arrive through whatever channel the manager has open at the moment.

In ElectricalBossPro the common paths are:

• Two-way texting. The manager texts the office number, and the office replies from ElectricalBossPro. The conversation stays with the client.
• The customer app. The manager can request service from the app, where they can also see invoices and pay.
• Your website request form. Requests land in Form Responses, where the office can review them.
• A phone call. Still common, and the office enters the job while on the call.

Whichever way it arrives, the request ends up in one place: a job at an address under the manager's client.

Getting the Address Right

The most important part of turning a request into a job is putting it on the right address. “The outlet in 214” needs to become a job at “Building C, Unit 214,” not a job at the management company's office address. Because every property is already an address under the client, the office opens the client, picks the address and creates the job.

That one step does a lot. The job picks up the address's access notes and equipment, the tech sees the unit's history, and the work lands on the right line of the monthly statement. For more on how addresses are organized, see Property Manager Electrical Accounts: One Client, Dozens of Addresses, One Place to Find Them.

Ask the Right Questions Once

A request often arrives with half the information. The office can fill in the rest with a quick text back:

• Which unit or building?
• Is the unit occupied, and does the tenant know someone is coming?
• Where is the key, if nobody will be home?
• Is it urgent, or can it go on the next route in that area?

Anything that will be true next time too, like where the key is kept, belongs in the access notes on the address, not just in this job.

Over time, the questions get shorter. Once an address has good access notes and a few past jobs, the office only needs to know what is wrong and how soon. That is a big part of why managers stick with an electrician who already knows their properties: asking for help takes one text instead of five.

Requests From New Managers

Not every request comes from an existing account. A manager who found you online may send their first request through your website form. It lands in Form Responses like any other. If they use your sign-up form instead, the card is captured, and one click converts the sign-up into a client. From there, the office adds their first address and creates the job. A smooth first request is often how a single call turns into a whole portfolio.

Scheduling the Request

Once the job exists, it goes on the dispatch board. Small requests can usually ride along with a van that is already in the area. The office can see the property on the map, find the van working nearby that day, and add the job. Auto-route puts it in order, or the office sets the position by hand.

Bigger requests, like a quote on lighting upgrades, start as an estimate built from your service list. The manager approves it online, and the approved estimate becomes the scheduled job.

Closing the Loop

Managers send more work to the electrician who keeps them informed. Automatic on-the-way and arrived alerts tell the manager when the tech is heading over and when they arrive. When the job is complete, the tech's notes and before-and-after photos are on the job. The office can text the manager a quick summary, and on Monthly billing the work shows up on the next statement, labeled by address.

If the tech could not finish, maybe the tenant was not home, they tap Skip and note why. The office sees it right away and can text the manager to reschedule.

Make Asking Easy

Tell your managers the ways they can reach you, and make every one of them simple. A text number, the customer app and a short form on your website cover most people. The easier it is to ask, the more requests you get, and the more of the manager's properties end up on your schedule. For the full commercial toolkit, visit the commercial electrical software overview.