ElectricalBossPro Blog — Generator & Maintenance Plans

After an Outage: Handling the Rush of Generator Service Calls Without Dropping Plan Customers

When the power goes out across a region, the phones at every electrical shop light up. Generators that sat quietly for months are suddenly running hard, and the owners of the ones that are not running want help now. It is the busiest, most stressful stretch of the year for a generator contractor. The shops that handle it best are the ones that already know who their generator customers are, what they own and where they live.

Preparation Pays Off Here

The work done ahead of time, covered in Filling the Schedule Before Storm Season With Generator Service Visits, is what makes the days after an outage manageable. Plan customers who had their yearly visit are on record, their equipment is saved on the house, and the office has their phone numbers and two-way texting ready.

The software does not prevent outages or repair generators. What it does is give the office a clear picture when the calls start coming in.

Know What You Are Booking Before You Book It

When a customer calls, the office can open the client and see the generator on the house: brand, model, kW, fuel, year installed and location, plus the transfer switch or interlock and the main panel. Past notes from earlier visits are there too. If last year's visit noted anything, the office sees it.

That helps the office ask better questions and book the call with the right details. The tech who takes the call sees the same equipment on the job card, with the access notes, before arriving. Nobody spends the first ten minutes on site figuring out what kind of unit it is.

Sort Calls on the Dispatch Board

After an outage, service calls come in faster than vans can take them. The dispatch board shows jobs by day, filtered by van. The office can put calls on a van, set the route order by hand or auto-route Closest First or Furthest First from the shop, and adjust as new calls arrive. Crew GPS shows each van on the office map, so the office knows which tech is closest to a new call.

How you prioritize calls is your company's decision. Many shops give plan customers priority, because that is part of what they signed up for. Others sort by area to keep vans moving. The dispatch board shows the whole picture either way.

Keep Plan Customers Informed

The worst thing for a plan customer after an outage is silence. They paid for a yearly visit so that they would have someone to call, and now they are waiting. Two-way texting lets the office keep them informed: “We have your call. A tech will be out today. You'll get a text when the tech is on the way.”

Once the call is on a van, automated alerts go out to customers who chose them: when they are next, and when the tech arrives. In the customer app, they can see the live route map and where they are in line. That alone takes a lot of pressure off the office phone.

Tech App on a Long Day

Outage days are long for techs. The tech app keeps them moving: calls in route order, a navigation button on every card, equipment and access notes, Start, Skip and Complete, before and after photos. The time clock tracks hours as they go. When a job is done, the invoice is created and the card on file can be charged, so the office is not left with a stack of billing to do after the rush is over.

Notes and photos from outage calls are especially worth capturing well, because they are what the next tech will see. More on that in Photos and Notes From Generator Visits That Make Next Year Easier.

Do Not Let Plan Visits Disappear

After the rush, yearly plan visits that came due during the outage are still waiting. The Waiting List keeps them visible, colored due now and then overdue past a 7-day grace. Once the emergency calls settle down, the office can look at the map and get those visits back on the schedule.

Outage calls also tend to bring in new generator owners who are not on a plan. After the call, the office can follow up with an offer for the yearly plan, by text or email, with a link to sign up in the customer app. A homeowner who just went through an outage is often very open to it.

After the Storm

When things calm down, take a look at what happened. Which calls came from plan customers? Which came from generator owners not on a plan? Which areas had the most calls? Reports in ElectricalBossPro and the job history on each client help answer those questions, and the answers help plan the next season.

An outage is when a generator contractor proves their worth. Good records and a clear dispatch board make it far easier to show up for the customers who count on you. For how outage work fits with plans, records and billing, visit the ElectricalBossPro generator maintenance software page.