ElectricalBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Dispatch

Scheduling Yearly Electrical Safety Inspections From the Waiting List

A yearly safety inspection plan is one of the best things an electrical company can sell. The homeowner gets a once-a-year look at their panel, breakers, outlets, detectors and service equipment. The company gets a visit to every plan customer every year, a chance to spot work that needs doing, and a reason for the customer to call you first when something goes wrong. The catch is that a plan only works if the inspection actually gets scheduled every year.

Starting From the Waiting List

The map and list behind recurring work are explained in The Waiting List Map: Seeing Every Electrical Visit That Has Come Due. Safety inspection plans are the most common use of it.

Set the inspection up as a recurring service at 365 days between visits, at whatever price you charge, such as a $149 safety inspection. Customers can sign up for the plan in the customer app or from a sign-up form, or the office can add it to a client during a service call. From then on, the inspection comes due once a year on its own.

When Inspections Come Due

A year after the last inspection was completed, the property appears on the Waiting List as due now. If it is still not scheduled after a 7-day grace, it turns overdue. A plan that started with a big sign-up push often means a lot of inspections come due in the same few weeks the following year. The map shows that coming.

A simple weekly habit works well: once a week, open the Waiting List, look at what is due, and put it on the schedule for the next week or two.

Grouping Inspections by Area

Inspections are a good kind of work to batch. They are booked in advance, they take a fairly predictable amount of time, and they can be done on any weekday the customer is home. On the Waiting List map:

• Pick a group of due inspections in one part of town.
• Assign them to the van that handles inspections, often the same van that does installs and generators.
• Put them on one day and auto-route from the shop.

One van, one neighborhood, a day of inspections in a sensible order. If there are generator maintenance visits due in the same area, they can go on the same day. For generator scheduling, see Scheduling Yearly Generator Maintenance Without a Wall Calendar.

Getting the Homeowner There

A safety inspection is an inside visit. The tech needs into the house, near the panel, into the garage, maybe the attic. That means someone has to be home.

Before you assign the day, it helps to text the customer through two-way texting to confirm it works. After that, the automatic alerts handle the rest: a reminder the night before, a text when they are next and the arrived text when the tech pulls up. In the customer app, they can see the route and their place in line on the day.

A homeowner tip worth passing along in the reminder: keep the area in front of the panel clear so the tech can get to it. That is the kind of simple, general advice that saves time on the day.

On the Day

The tech opens the job on their phone. The equipment saved on the house shows on the card: main panel, subpanels, meter base, any generator, transfer switch, EV charger or surge protector, each with brand, model, rating, year and location. The tech works through the safety inspection checklist in the app, records the readings, picks a condition and writes recommendations.

When the tech taps Complete, the office sees the results on the job and can print an Electrical Safety Inspection report for the homeowner. The invoice is created, and a card on file can be charged. The next year's inspection is already counting down.

Turning Recommendations Into Scheduled Work

Inspections often turn up work: a panel upgrade recommendation, a request for a surge protector, an EV charger the homeowner has been meaning to ask about. The office can build an estimate from your service list, send it to the customer to approve online, and the approved estimate becomes a scheduled job. The install goes on the install van's calendar like any other.

A Plan the Customer Can See Working

The best reason to schedule inspections from a live map is that the customer actually gets the visit every year, on time, with a report in hand. To see how inspection scheduling fits with the dispatch board and the tech app, visit the ElectricalBossPro electrician scheduling software page.