GarageDoorBossPro Blog — Garage Door Software

Fitting Emergency Spring Calls Into a Full Day With Garage Door Software

A broken spring does not care about your schedule. The homeowner's car is stuck in the garage, they need to get to work, and they are calling every company in town until someone says yes. The company that can say “we can be there this afternoon” and mean it gets the job. Garage door software helps you say yes without wrecking the rest of the day.

Starting From a Planned Day

The board where these calls get placed is described in Dispatching Garage Door Calls: The Scheduled List, Vans and Route Order. Emergency calls are the hardest test of that board.

The best way to handle emergencies is to plan for them. Many garage door companies keep one van on repairs with room left in its day, and put the scheduled installs and tune-ups on another. When the urgent calls come, the repair van has space and the install van stays on track.

Taking the Call

When the homeowner calls, the office looks them up or adds them. If they are a past customer, the house record already shows the door, the springs and the opener, and the From House picker puts that equipment on the new job. The tech knows the door size and spring setup before leaving, which helps make sure the right parts are on the van.

While on the phone, it is worth telling the homeowner plainly: do not try to open the door by force, and do not touch the springs or cables. Those are under serious tension and are a job for a trained tech. The software never sends homeowners repair instructions, and your office should not either.

Finding the Closest Van

Crew GPS shows where every tech is on the office map. Instead of calling each tech to ask where they are and how long they will be, the office looks at the map, sees which van is nearest, and checks that van's remaining jobs on the dispatch board.

If the repair van is across town and the install van is two streets away finishing a tune-up, the office can make a call: does the install van take it, or does it wait for the repair van? The map makes that a quick decision.

Dropping It Into the Route

Once the office picks a van, it adds the job to that van's day and sets where it goes in the route order. Usually that means right after the current job, or after the next one if it is on the way. The tech's phone updates with the new job in place, along with its equipment and access notes.

If the emergency pushes something else back, the office can move that job to later in the day or to tomorrow, and the affected customer can be texted from the office through two-way texting.

Keeping the Homeowner Calm

A homeowner with a stuck door wants to know one thing: when. Automatic texts answer it without anyone in the office picking up the phone again.

• An on-the-way text when the tech heads to the job
• An arrived text when the tech gets there
• If they use the customer app, a live map showing where they are in the route

Fewer “where is the tech?” calls means the office can keep answering new ones.

Pricing After-Hours Work

If you charge for after-hours or same-day emergency service, set it up as its own service in your service list. The office or tech adds it to the job, and it shows as a line item on the invoice. A garage door company might list an after-hours emergency fee alongside a $295 torsion spring replacement, with prices set however you run your business.

When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created and the card on file can be charged. For new customers who do not have a card on file, the invoice can be paid online from the customer app.

Turning an Emergency Into a Customer

The emergency call is often a homeowner's first contact with your company. While on site, the tech can run the door safety inspection and note anything else worth fixing. The office can print the Garage Door Safety Inspection report and offer a yearly tune-up plan. A customer who first called with a broken spring can come due on the Waiting List next year as a tune-up customer. That is covered in The Door Safety Inspection Checklist in Garage Door Software.

Same-Day Without the Chaos

Emergency calls will always shuffle the day. The goal is to make the shuffle quick: see the closest van, drop the job in, let the texts go out, and charge when it is done. For the rest of the tools behind same-day service, visit the GarageDoorBossPro garage door software page.