TrashCanBossPro Blog — Trash Can Cleaning Software

The Customer App: What Bin Cleaning Customers See on Their Phone

Most calls a bin cleaning office gets come down to four questions. When are you coming? Did you come? How much do I owe? Can I add a can? A good customer app answers all four before the phone rings.

The Other End of the Route

In The Tech App in Trash Can Cleaning Software: What the Crew Sees in the Field, we followed the tech through the day. Every tap the tech makes shows up somewhere on the customer's side. This article is about that side: what your customers see and do in the TrashCanBossPro customer app.

Where Is the Crew?

On cleaning day, the customer app shows today's route on a live map with the customer's place in line: "You're stop 12 of 20, the crew is 5 stops away." Customers can see the trailer coming without calling the office to ask.

For a bin cleaning company, that has a practical payoff. A customer who can see the crew is five stops away is a customer who walks out and rolls the cans to the curb, or opens the side gate, before the trailer arrives.

Choosing Their Alerts

Not everyone wants the same texts. In the customer app, customers choose their alerts:

• Night before. The reminder to leave the cans out.
• When I'm next. A heads-up when the tech is on the way to them.
• When the tech arrives. Confirmation the crew is at the house.

Letting customers pick keeps the alerts useful. The people who want every update get them, and the people who just want the night-before reminder don't feel spammed.

Requesting Service and Signing Up

Customers can request service and sign up for services right from the app. A customer who wants a one-time extra cleaning after a summer cookout, or who wants to add their recycling can to the plan, can ask without a phone call. Requests come into the office, where someone schedules them and they go through the same dispatch board as everything else.

The customer app also shows your services and pricing for sign-ups, so customers see what they are signing up for.

Cards, Invoices and Payment

Billing questions are the most annoying calls an office gets. The customer app takes most of them off the phone:

• Customers can update the card on file when theirs expires.
• They can see their invoices, with line items and sales tax.
• They can pay an open invoice online.

For plan customers with a card on file, payment usually happens automatically when the tech completes the job. The app is where they go to check it. For the billing side from the office, read Billing in Trash Can Cleaning Software: Card on File, Auto-Charge and Past-Due Follow-Up.

Ratings and Referrals

Bin cleaning grows street by street. One clean can at the curb gets the neighbors asking. The customer app gives happy customers an easy way to rate the cleaning and refer a neighbor, which puts your best word-of-mouth right in their hands.

What It Means for the Office

Every question a customer can answer in the app is a call the office doesn't take. "When are you coming?" is the live map. "Did you come?" is the completed job and the invoice. "How much do I owe?" is the invoice list. "Can I add a can?" is a service request.

When a customer does need to talk, two-way texting from the office handles it, with the customer's address and cans right next to the message.

Privacy on the Live Map

Customers seeing the route raises a fair question: can they see other customers? The live map is built to show a customer their own place in line and where the crew is, so they know when to expect the trailer. It is meant to answer "how close is the crew?" for that customer.

Getting Customers Into the App

The app only helps if customers use it. A few simple habits get them there. Mention it in the welcome text when a new client is added. Point to it in the first night-before reminder. When a customer calls asking when the crew will arrive, answer the question and then tell them where to see it next time. When a card expires, send them to the app to update it instead of taking the number over the phone. After a few weeks, most of your regular customers will check the app before they think about calling.

The Takeaway

The customer app shows customers where the crew is, lets them pick their alerts, request service, update their card, see and pay invoices, and refer a neighbor. It is the part of your software your customers actually touch. For how it fits with the office and the tech app, visit the trash can cleaning software page.