Service Calls

Service Ticket Software for a Three-Hour Repair

By Travis Evans, Founder of TradeGOAT · 20+ years in the trades

Most of what my elevator company does in a week isn't a big job. It's a call that comes in during the morning, a tech who gets there before lunch, and a repair that takes about three hours. For years the record of that work was a paper ticket riding around in the truck, and the office didn't see it until the tech brought it in. I wanted service ticket software that would put the short job in front of the office the same day it was done.

TradeGOAT is what I built for that. A three-hour repair runs on a service ticket the tech fills out on his phone, in the same tool that runs my two-year jobs. Here's how a small one goes from the call to a signed ticket.

Starting the ticket

For a plain service call, the tech taps New ticket on his phone and picks the customer. That's the whole start. He doesn't need the office to set anything up first.

Some repairs need a price before anybody turns a wrench. In that case you price it and send a proposal the same way you would for a bigger job. Once it's signed, the job is created, and the tech opens the ticket from that job on his phone.

Service ticket software a tech can use at the unit

The ticket on the phone is a form, and it's filled out standing where the work was done. The tech writes up what he found and what he did while it's still in front of him.

If he stopped at the supply house for a part, he adds the receipt from his phone with a photo and the amount. He clocks in and out on the phone too, and each punch is stamped with where he was.

The signature

When the work is done, the tech hands the phone to the customer and the customer signs on the screen. The finished ticket becomes a PDF, and it emails itself to the customer and to the office. Nobody tears off a copy, and nobody has to remember to turn one in on Friday.

I wrote more about what changes once a ticket is off paper in What a Paper Service Ticket Can't Do.

What the office has when he drives away

The office has the signed ticket the same day, without waiting on the truck to come back. If the ticket was opened from a job, it also posts to that job's page in a section called From the field, next to the receipt and the price the customer agreed to.

That's the part I care about most on a small job. A three-hour repair doesn't make much, and for a long time I lost some of them between the truck and the desk. Now the office has what was done and who signed for it before the tech is on his next call.

A short job and a long one run the same way in TradeGOAT. The short one is just finished sooner. If you'd like to see a ticket and a job page for yourself, there's a demo you can click through at thetradegoat.com.