GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Commercial Doors

After-Hours and Emergency Commercial Door Calls: Getting a Tech to a Stuck Door

Commercial door emergencies have a pattern. A dock door that won't close at the end of the last shift. A rolling door on a storefront stuck open after closing. A shop bay door that won't open with a car on the lift. The client needs someone now, and the door company that answers and shows up with the right information is the one that keeps the account.

Emergencies Skip the Line

Regular visits come through the map, as covered in The Waiting List for Commercial Accounts: Seeing Every Door Visit That Is Due. Emergencies don't wait for the map. They go straight onto the dispatch board.

In GarageDoorBossPro, the office opens the client, picks the address, and adds the job for today. If the client has several buildings, picking the right address is the first step. Then the “From House” picker shows the doors saved on that address, and the office picks the one that's stuck. The job carries that door's type, size, material, bay and serial, so the tech sees it all on the way.

Asking the Right Questions

The first call from a client in a hurry is often short on detail. A few questions get what the tech needs:

• Which building? For a client with several addresses.
• Which door? Dock number, bay number or what the client calls it.
• Open or shut? Stuck open is a security problem; stuck shut is a business problem.
• Who will meet the tech? Name and number of the person on site.
• How do they get in? Especially after hours, when the front office is closed.

Put the answers in the job notes. Anything that will be true next time, like an after-hours contact, belongs in the address's access notes. For more on those, see Access Notes for Commercial Doors: Keys, Dock Offices, Contacts and Hours.

Finding the Closest Van

During the day, the emergency usually goes to whichever van makes the most sense. Crew GPS shows where every van is on the office map, so the office can see who is closest. In a typical setup, one van runs repairs and emergency spring calls, and that van's day is built with room for calls like this. The office drops the emergency into that van's route order, and the tech's phone shows it as the next stop.

After hours, the on-call tech gets the job assigned to them. The job lands on their phone with the door record, access notes and past notes, so they aren't calling the office at night to find out where they are going.

Keeping the Client Posted

A client waiting on a stuck door wants to know when help is coming. Automatic “on the way” and “arrived” texts go out from the tech app as the tech works the job, and the office can text the site contact directly through two-way texting. If the person who called is not the person waiting at the door, the office can text the right one.

When the job is done, before-and-after photos and the tech's notes stay on the job. The facility manager who wasn't there at midnight can see what happened the next morning.

Billing the Emergency

Most door companies charge more for after-hours work. Set it up as its own service on your service list, such as an after-hours emergency service call, at whatever price you charge. It goes on the invoice as a clear line item along with the repair itself.

When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created. A card on file can be charged right away, or if the account is billed monthly, the emergency lands on that month's statement with the address on the line. Either way, nobody has to remember to bill a job that happened at 9pm.

After the Emergency

An emergency is a good time to talk about a maintenance plan. The client has just learned what a stuck door costs them. The tech can work the door safety inspection checklist on the door, or on all the doors while they are there if the client wants, and record a condition and recommendations. The office can follow up with a printed inspection report and an estimate for any repairs, approved online by the manager.

If the client agrees to regular visits, set up recurring work every 90 days or whatever cycle fits, and future visits come due on the Waiting List on their own.

Being the Company They Call

Commercial clients remember who showed up. Fast dispatch, the right door on the job card and clean paperwork afterward make the next emergency call yours too. For how emergency work fits with maintenance, inspections and billing, go back to the commercial garage door software overview.