ElectricalBossPro Blog — Running an Electrical Business

The Office Side of an Electrical Business: Phones, Schedules, Invoices and Follow-Up

Customers judge an electrical company by two things: the work, and everything around the work. Did someone answer? Did they say when the tech was coming? Was the invoice right? Did anyone follow up on the quote? The second list is the office's job, even when the “office” is the owner's phone in the truck.

The Office Exists Whether You Hire One or Not

The last article, From One Truck to Three Vans: What Changes When an Electrical Business Grows, looked at how growth shifts the owner's job. Much of that shift lands on the office.

In a one-truck shop the office is the owner at night. In a three-van shop it might be a part-time office manager, a spouse, or a dispatcher. Either way, the same work has to get done. Naming it is the first step to getting it out of one person's head.

Phones and New Requests

Every job starts with a request: a call, a text, a website form, or a customer tapping Request Service in the customer app. The office's first job is catching all of them in one place.

• Calls get booked straight onto the schedule or into an estimate.
• Website requests and sign-ups flow into Form Responses. A sign-up form captures the customer's card, and one click turns that sign-up into a client.
• Texts come into two-way texting from the office, so they don't sit unread on a tech's personal phone.
• Customer app requests arrive tied to the customer and address they came from.

The test is simple: if the person answering the phone goes home sick, can someone else see every open request? If yes, the office is working.

The Schedule and the Board

Once the request is in, it needs a day and a van. The dispatch board shows jobs by day, filtered by van, with auto-routing from the shop and route order the office can change by hand. The office also watches the Waiting List, a live map of yearly inspections, generator maintenance and commercial visits that have come due.

A good office books from both sides every day: new requests coming in, and plan visits coming due. The Waiting List pins are colored not due yet, due now, or overdue past a seven-day grace, so the office can see what needs a call this week.

Keeping Customers in the Loop

Much of the office's phone time is answering “when is the electrician coming?” Automatic texts take most of that off the desk. Customers choose a reminder the night before, an alert when they're next, and a text when the tech arrives. The customer app shows a live map of the route. When a customer does need a person, two-way texting lets the office reply from the same screen that holds the schedule.

Every plan includes a monthly text allowance — 500, 1,000 or 2,000 segments sent and received on Start, Pro and Crew — so the office isn't texting from a personal phone.

Estimates and Follow-Up

Bigger jobs start with an estimate. The office builds it from your service list, adds equipment details when they matter, and sends it for the customer to approve online. Approved estimates become scheduled jobs. Estimates that sit get follow-up emails, and estimate templates save rebuilding the same EV charger or panel upgrade quote every time.

The follow-up is where small shops lose the most work. The quote went out, nobody called back, and the customer forgot. More on this in Following Up on Estimates in an Electrical Business So Approved Work Doesn't Slip Away.

Invoices and Collections

When the tech taps Complete, an invoice is created with line items and sales tax, and a card on file can be charged on the spot. Some customers pay later from the customer app. The office's job is the short list of invoices that are past due, and the past-due follow-up does the first reminders.

Commercial and property manager accounts are their own case. Set an account to Monthly and it gets one statement each month covering every address, with each line labeled by address. The office sends one bill instead of a dozen.

What a Good Office Day Looks Like

A simple daily rhythm for the office of a small electrical shop:

• Morning: check the board, confirm each van's order, answer overnight texts and form responses.
• Midday: book new calls, move skipped jobs to a new day, send estimates.
• Afternoon: book from the Waiting List, check open estimates, look at past-due invoices.
• End of day: read what each van completed and skipped, and set up tomorrow.

None of it is complicated. It just has to happen every day, and it has to happen in one place so anyone can pick it up. The other parts of running the business are on the electrical business software page.