ElectricalBossPro Blog — Generator & Maintenance Plans

Due Now vs. Overdue: Working the 7-Day Grace Window on Maintenance Plans

A yearly visit that happens a few days late is fine. A yearly visit that happens three months late, or not at all, is a problem. The customer paid for a plan, and the plan is the promise that you will show up. The due now and overdue statuses on the ElectricalBossPro Waiting List exist to tell the difference between a visit that is waiting its turn and one that is slipping through the cracks.

How the Statuses Work

The map itself is covered in The Waiting List Map: Seeing Every Generator Visit That Is Due or Overdue. Here is what the colors mean in practice.

When a plan's minimum days between visits are up, the visit is due now. For a yearly generator plan, that is 365 days after the last completed visit. The visit then has a 7-day grace. If it has not been done by the end of that grace, it turns overdue. Visits that are coming up but not yet due show as not due yet.

Those three colors turn a long list into a quick read. The office does not have to do date math in their head. The pins tell them.

Treat Due Now as the Working Pile

Most shops find it easiest to treat due-now visits as the normal working pile for maintenance days. Every week, the office looks at the due pins, groups them by area and puts them on a van. A week is usually enough time to fit a visit in without rushing, which is the point of the grace.

If the due pile is growing faster than one maintenance day a week can clear, that is useful information. It may be time to add a second maintenance day, or to pull a few visits forward from the not-due-yet pins to spread the load.

Overdue Means Someone Should Look

An overdue pin does not mean something is wrong with the customer's equipment. It means the visit you promised has not happened yet, and it is past the window you gave yourself. Those deserve a closer look:

• Was it skipped? If the tech tapped Skip on an earlier attempt, the reason will be in the notes, such as “gate locked” or “customer asked to reschedule.”
• Is the customer reachable? A quick two-way text from the office often settles it: “Your yearly generator visit is due. Does Thursday work?”
• Is the address right? If the pin is in an odd place, check the address on the client record.
• Is the plan still active? If the customer has sold the house or canceled, take the plan off the property so it stops coming due.

Keeping Customers in the Loop

Customers on a yearly plan usually do not track the date themselves. They expect you to. Automated reminders by text and email help close the gap. Customers can choose a night-before reminder, a heads-up when they are next on the route, and a text when the tech arrives. The “on the way” and “arrived” texts go out on their own from the tech app.

For overdue visits, a personal text from the office goes a long way. Replies come back into two-way texting, where the office can confirm a day and put the visit on the board. The full reminder setup is in Generator Maintenance Reminders by Text and Email: Night Before, On the Way, Arrived.

Overdue Before Storm Season

Overdue visits matter most right before the season when generators get the most use. A customer whose yearly visit is two months overdue when storm season starts is the customer most likely to call you frustrated. Before that season, many shops run a sweep: clear every overdue pin, then every due-now pin, then pull forward the not-due-yet visits that would otherwise fall in the middle of the season.

The Waiting List makes that sweep visible. You can watch the map go from a cluster of overdue pins to mostly not-due-yet, and know every plan customer has had their visit.

A Simple Weekly Habit

The shops that keep plans on track usually have one simple habit: someone looks at the Waiting List at the same time every week. Ten minutes on Monday morning is enough to spot overdue pins, group due visits into a route and send a few texts. The software keeps the count, the colors flag the problems, and the office makes the calls.

Keep the overdue pile small and your plan customers will notice the difference. For the rest of the maintenance plan setup, visit the ElectricalBossPro generator maintenance software page.