JunkBossPro Blog — Crew App

Moving Junk Crews Off Paper Work Orders and the Group Text

Plenty of junk removal companies run on a whiteboard in the yard, a stack of paper work orders and a group text that has been going for three years. It works, mostly, because the owner is holding it all together. The trouble starts when the owner is not around, when a second truck is added, or when a customer calls about a job from two months ago and the paper is gone.

What Paper and Group Texts Cost

The customer's side of the system is covered in The Customer App From the Homeowner's Side: Live Map, Alerts, Invoices and Payment. Getting there starts with getting the crew off paper.

The cost of paper is mostly hidden. It shows up as:

• Work orders that are wrong by 9am because a job got added or cancelled.
• Gate codes buried in the group text, alongside every old code anyone ever sent.
• Dump tickets that never match up with a job, so overage never gets billed.
• Invoices typed up at night from handwriting on a crumpled sheet.
• Photos on one driver's phone, and gone when he leaves.
• Former helpers who still have your customer list in their texts.

Step One: Get the Jobs In

Before the crew changes anything, the office side needs to be ready. Add your service list: single items, quarter, half, three-quarter and full truck loads, mattresses, appliances, cleanouts and anything else you sell. Bring your customers in with a CSV import if you have them in a spreadsheet; imported addresses are placed on the map automatically. Set up your trucks.

Then put a few days of real jobs on the dispatch board, with load sizes, items and what's going filled in. The better the jobs are filled in, the better the crew's first day goes.

Step Two: Move Codes Off the Group Text

Go through the group text and move every current gate code, garage code and lockbox combo into the access notes on the matching address. Add parking and stair notes while you are at it. Access notes are covered in Access Notes for Junk Crews: Gate Codes, Garages, Stairs and Where to Park the Truck.

Once the codes are on the addresses, stop sending codes in the group text. Codes on the address are shown only to crew signed in with a personal PIN, and when someone leaves, turning off their PIN turns off their access.

Step Three: Set Up the Crew

Give each driver and helper a personal PIN and a truck assignment. Get the app on every phone in the browser, installed to the home screen, no app store. Do it in the yard on the first morning, ten minutes per person.

Step Four: Run One Week Side by Side, Then Stop

For the first few days, it is fine to keep a printed route sheet in the cab as a backup. The dispatch board can print one. But set an end date. Once the crew trusts the phone, the paper becomes a crutch that keeps the old habits alive. Pick a Monday and stop printing.

The same goes for the group text. It can stay for “running late” and “need a hand on the hot tub,” but job information lives on the job.

Step Five: Add Habits One at a Time

Start with sign in, clock in, navigation, Start and Complete. Add before-and-after photos the next week. Then notes on skips and add-ons. Then dump tickets. Each habit sticks better when it gets its own week. Tie each one to a button, so the trigger is something the crew already does: tap Start, take the before photos; take the after photos, tap Complete. Getting crews on board is covered in more depth in Getting a Junk Crew to Actually Use the App.

Expect a few bumps. A job with a missing unit number, a code that was never moved off the group text, a helper who forgets to clock out. Each one is a quick fix in the office, and each fix makes the next week smoother.

What You Get on the Other Side

When the switch is done, the office stops typing invoices at night, dump overages get billed, photos stay with the job, and customers get texts without anyone typing them. And when a helper leaves, nothing leaves with them. To see the full crew app you are switching to, visit the JunkBossPro junk removal app page.