ElectricalBossPro Blog — Commercial Accounts

Texting Property Managers and Store Managers: Two-Way Messages and Automatic Alerts

Commercial managers live on their phones. A property manager is driving between buildings. A store manager is on the sales floor. A gym manager is covering the front desk. None of them want to sit through a phone call to hear that your tech is on the way. A text they can read in five seconds is how they want to hear from you.

Texting Keeps the Account in the Loop

Photos as proof are covered in Before-and-After Photos as Proof for Commercial Electrical Accounts. Texting is how most of the day-to-day communication with an account actually happens.

ElectricalBossPro handles two kinds of texts for commercial accounts: two-way conversations between your office and the manager, and automatic alerts that go out as your techs work.

Two-Way Texting From the Office

Your office can text a manager directly from ElectricalBossPro, and their replies come back to the office. The conversation stays with the client, so anyone in the office can pick it up. Common commercial texts look like:

• “We can be at Building C Thursday morning. Will the maintenance office have the electrical room key?”
• “Tech found two more fixtures out in the stairwell. Want us to replace them on this visit?”
• “Your estimate for Suite 300 is in your inbox. Any questions?”
• “Unit 214 turnover is done. Photos are on the job if you want to see them.”

Managers also text in. Service requests, quick questions and schedule changes all land in the same conversation, so nothing gets lost in somebody's personal phone.

Automatic Alerts as the Tech Works

The tech app sends automatic texts as the day goes on. An on-the-way text goes out when the tech heads to a stop, and an arrived text when they get there. Customers choose which alerts they want: the night before, when they are next, and when the tech arrives.

For a commercial account, these alerts are often the most useful texts they get. A store manager who receives “on the way” can grab the electrical room key from the office. A property manager who gets “arrived” at a vacant unit knows the turnover is underway without driving over. The customer app also shows the day's route on a live map, so a manager can see where the tech is.

Who Gets the Texts

Commercial accounts often involve more than one person, and not all of them want every text. The manager who approves work may want alerts on every visit. The accounts payable contact probably wants none. It is worth asking each account how they want to be contacted, writing that down on the client, and setting alert preferences to match.

For after-hours work in particular, check who should hear from you. A night job at an office building might need a text to the building engineer, not the leasing manager who went home at five.

Keep It Professional

Texts to commercial accounts should be short and specific. Name the address or unit, say what is happening and what you need. Skip abbreviations and anything that would look odd if the manager forwarded it to the owner, because sometimes they will.

Plain characters help too. Fancy punctuation and emoji can make a text longer to send than it looks.

Because the conversation lives with the client and not on one person's phone, it also survives staff changes on both sides. If your office manager is out, someone else can read the thread and pick up where it left off. If the account gets a new property manager, the history of what was promised and when is still there for your office to refer to.

Texts and the Monthly Statement

Texting also helps billing go smoothly. When a manager approves extra work by text, such as two more fixtures on a relamping visit, the office can add the line items to the job right away. When the statement goes out at the end of the month, the manager is not surprised by a line they forgot about, because they said yes to it in a message they can scroll back to.

The Text Allowance

Every plan includes a monthly text allowance counted in segments sent and received: 500 on Start, 1,000 on Pro and 2,000 on Crew. Short, plain texts use fewer segments. Most commercial communication is brief by nature, so a sensible routine of alerts and office texts fits comfortably in an allowance that matches the size of your shop. Texting is available for customers in the US and Canada.

Texting Is Customer Service

Managers do not judge you only on the work. They judge you on whether they knew what was happening. A few well-timed texts turn a routine visit into one they do not have to think about. For more on running commercial accounts, see the commercial electrical software overview, or read Keeping a Commercial Electrical Account Happy: Show Up, Report Back, Bill Clean.