JunkBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Dispatch

Moving Junk Removal Scheduling Off Paper, Spreadsheets and the Group Text

Most junk companies run on some mix of a notebook, a spreadsheet, a whiteboard and a group text called something like “JOBS.” It works until it doesn't: the group text scrolls past the address you need, the spreadsheet has three versions, and the notebook is in the other truck. Switching feels like a big project. It doesn't have to be.

Starting Small Is Fine

If you're a one-truck operation, the owner-operator routine is in Scheduling and Dispatch for the One-Truck Junk Removal Owner-Operator. This guide is about the move itself, for a company of any size: what to bring over, in what order, and how to get the crew on board.

Step One: Bring Over Your Customers

Start with the people. If your customers live in a spreadsheet, a CSV import brings them in, and imported addresses are placed on the map automatically. Property managers and realtors come in as one client with many addresses.

Don't try to clean everything first. Bring it in, then fix records as you touch them. A customer you last served two years ago can wait.

Step Two: Set Up Your Service List

Next, set up the services you actually sell: single items, quarter, half, three-quarter and full truck loads, mattresses, appliances, hot tubs, pianos, shed teardowns, estate and garage cleanouts, apartment trash-outs, same-day service. Use your own prices. These become the building blocks for estimates and jobs.

If you charge for weight over what's included, decide your included tons and per-ton rate up front so the dump fee overage can be figured from each ticket.

Step Three: Put the Open Work In

Now take everything in the notebook and the group text that isn't done yet and enter it. Each job gets an address, a load size, what's going and a haul-to stop. Booked jobs get a day and a truck. Unbooked requests stay on the Waiting List.

This is the step that pays off fastest. The first time you look at the Waiting List map and see every open request as a pin, you'll notice work that has been sitting in the notebook for weeks, two streets from where your truck was yesterday.

Step Four: Get the Crew on Their Phones

Set up each crew member as an employee with a personal PIN and a truck assignment. The crew app runs in the browser on iPhone and Android, with no app store, so they use the phones they already carry.

Training is a ride-along. Show them the route, a job card, the Go buttons to the customer and the dump, Start, Skip and Complete, and the before and after photos. Most crews have it by lunch. The crew's side is in What the Junk Crew Sees: The Day in Route Order on the Phone.

Step Five: Turn On Customer Texts

Once the schedule is in the system, customer alerts can run from it: night-before reminders, a text when they're next and a text when the crew arrives. On-the-way and arrived texts go out automatically as the crew works. Two-way texting brings replies back to the office instead of to someone's personal phone.

This is often when owners notice the biggest change. The phone rings less.

Before you turn alerts on, check the customer records you imported. A wrong mobile number means a reminder goes to the wrong person or nowhere at all. Spot-check the customers on the next few days of the schedule, fix what's wrong, and keep fixing records as you book new jobs. Within a few weeks, the customers you actually serve will have clean contact details.

Step Six: Hook Up Your Website Form

Add the request form and sign-up form to your own site. Requests flow into Form Responses, and a sign-up converts into a client with one click. No more copying website emails into the notebook.

Run Both for a Week, Then Stop

It's fine to keep the whiteboard up for a week while everyone gets used to the board. Then take it down. Two systems is worse than either one, because nobody knows which is right. Same with the group text: keep it for chatter, but jobs live in the app.

What You Don't Have to Do

You don't have to learn everything at once. Route sheets, saved views, monthly accounts and the rest can wait until you need them. Get customers, services, open jobs and the crew app working first. Everything else builds on that. For the full set of tools, visit the JunkBossPro junk removal scheduling software page.