JunkBossPro Blog — Online Booking & Leads

The Customer App: Letting Junk Removal Customers Request Service Themselves

Every phone call a junk removal office answers is one of a few questions. When are you coming? How much do I owe? Can you come back for the rest? Can you update my card? Most of those can be answered without anyone picking up the phone, if the customer has somewhere to look. That is the customer app.

Beyond the First Job

Squeezing a same-day request into a moving route is covered in Same-Day Junk Removal Requests: Booking Them Without Wrecking the Route. Once a customer has been booked, the customer app is where they deal with you from then on.

Every JunkBossPro client gets the customer app. It runs on their phone, and it lets them do the routine things themselves.

Request Service

The most useful button in the app, for a junk removal company, is the one that asks for more work. A customer who had you haul a couch in March can request service again in July when the garage fills up, without searching for your website or digging up your number.

That request comes to you like any other, and the job can go on the Waiting List until it fits a route. Because the customer is already a client, their address, access notes and card on file are already there. A repeat request is usually the fastest booking you will do all week.

Sign Up for Services and Pricing

Customers can also sign up for services and see your pricing in the app. For a junk removal company, that is a good place to show your standard offerings: single items, truck load sizes, mattress and appliance pickups, hot tub removal, cleanouts. A customer who knows your single item rate doesn't need to text and ask.

This matters most for customers you work with more than once: landlords with rentals, property managers, realtors, and homeowners working through a long cleanout a weekend at a time.

See the Visit Day and the Truck

Customers see when their job is scheduled. On the day, they can watch the truck's progress on a live map: “You're stop 12 of 20 — the crew is 5 stops away.” That one line replaces most of the “are you still coming?” calls.

They also choose their own alerts: the night before, when they're next, and when the crew arrives. Both are covered in the next two guides, starting with Showing Customers Their Junk Removal Visit Day and the Truck on the Map.

Card, Invoices and Payment

The money side of the app takes work off the office:

• Update their card. A customer with an expired card can fix it themselves, before the crew finishes the job.
• See invoices. What was hauled, the load size, any dump fee overage, the total.
• Pay online. If you don't charge a card on file at completion, the customer can pay from the app.

Property managers and realtors set to Monthly billing see their single monthly statement, with each address on its own line, instead of a stack of separate invoices.

Rate and Refer

After the job, customers can rate it and refer someone from the app. The best time to ask for a referral is right after a good job, when the garage is empty and the customer is pleased. Having the option in the app they already use makes it easy. Both get their own guides later in this series, including Customer Referrals: Turning One Junk Removal Job Into the Next Lead.

Getting Customers to Use It

An app only cuts calls if customers open it. A few ways to make that happen:

• Mention it in your first text. “You can see your visit day and track the truck in our customer app.”
• Point to it when they call. “You can see where we are on the map in the app. You're three stops out.”
• Use it for repeat work. “Next time, just request it in the app.”

The customer app runs on the phones your customers already have, iPhone or Android.

Partners Use It Too

Realtors, landlords and property managers get the most out of the customer app, because they deal with you over and over. A property manager can request service for the next move-out, see which day each address is booked, watch the truck on the map without driving to the building, and see the monthly statement with every address on its own line. The less they have to call you, the easier you are to keep using.

Fewer Calls, More Repeat Work

The customer app answers the routine questions and makes the next booking a tap away. For how it fits with the request form, texting and the Waiting List, visit the JunkBossPro junk removal booking software page.