# Customers texting



## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

The first time a customer texted me to confirm an appt was in '08. I appreciated it being it was easier than calling. Fast forward to '13 and I have had more and more customers texting me to communicate. This is not exclusive to those under the age of 35 either. I am wondering if other people on here are experiencing that and if they like it. 

My company doesn't provide cell phones so I give out my personal number all the time to my customers and have had no issues though I opt to not give my number occasionally for obvious reasons. I have unlimited minutes and texts. I tell them to bypass our call center and call me to book appts and it seems that texting is becoming the preferred method. I still get calls from many customers but for quick questions about appts or giving me directions, etc. than texting is great. I love it and am happy when my customers take the liberty of texting to get a hold of me.


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## Shoot'N'Plumber (Apr 27, 2013)

So far, (in my early stages of being self employed) ive found it somewhat easier with the initial request. My last one was "good morning, this is ***** I recieved your number from my neighbor *****, he said you install water heaters! Do you have a flat rate or do you need to come out and look. Please text me back as I am at work and cannot talk on the phone. Thanks in advance" I responded with my standard rate based on certain factors at which point she text me a picture of her unit which I was then able to give her an exact price. I made an apt. for next day and installed it. Out first voice conversation was when I showed up. She said that was the easiest apt. she has ever made. So far it works when it happens this way.


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

It is definitely another useful form of communication and seems to be only getting more prevalent.


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## Unclog1776 (Feb 5, 2013)

Use texts lot with customers and other contractors. Great way to send info such as address phone numbers ect.


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## 422 plumber (Jul 31, 2008)

Your shop is tripping over dollars to pick up a nickel by not providing phones. A well established shop in my area had our county seat locked up. When a competitor went out of business, they wanted Tom to buy them. He refused and waited. They closed up, he hired the three plumbers and office girl. He basically got all their customers for free. The guys asked him to reimburse their cell phones, because the customers called those numbers, he refused. After about 2 years, those same employees walked off (long story) and started up their own shop. They took all their customers, plus some of his, because now, even his existing customers were used to calling the cell phone number. 
I believe it's bad for a shop and the plumber not to have the shop give out phones. My boss has a deal with AT&T, he pays so my a month for his business plan, and each iPhone costs him 25 a month, no limit on voice or data. 
Back to your question, a lot of our customers text and email me, it is much better than a pencil and paper while driving, or under a sink.

Sent from my iPhone using PlumbingZone


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## Gryphon Plumber (Jun 3, 2012)

As a owner I would not be happy to find my techs giving their direct contact information to customers (Company Provided or not.). Not to be abrasive Darn Sewer, but the first time you would be warned in writing, second time fired without severance. To many customers are stolen this way. That being said Amy uses her iPhone for everything. We just got a customer text today, and responded, but it doesn't happen often. Maybe we should advertise Text Friendly. Techs also shouldn't be scheduling. I am the MAIN MAN in my company, but still don't schedule Amy is the gate keeper there. If I schedule for a time at the same time she is in the office one of us is going to look stupid.


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## Plumbus (Aug 4, 2008)

If they don't provide phones, how do they communicate with you? Do they call or text your personal phone? 
The company supplies the tools. The phone is a tool. Therefore, the company should supply the phone.


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## Unclog1776 (Feb 5, 2013)

No company provided phones?!?!? Whenever we have a vendor pamphlet that needs to be filled out for a new commercial customer usually one of the questions is: are techs equipped with smart phones?

Extremely useful tool and not using one will be the death of the stubborn old timers.


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

Gryphon Plumber said:


> As a owner I would not be happy to find my techs giving their direct contact information to customers (Company Provided or not.). Not to be abrasive Darn Sewer, but the first time you would be warned in writing, second time fired without severance. To many customers are stolen this way. That being said Amy uses her iPhone for everything. We just got a customer text today, and responded, but it doesn't happen often. Maybe we should advertise Text Friendly. Techs also shouldn't be scheduling. I am the MAIN MAN in my company, but still don't schedule Amy is the gate keeper there. If I schedule for a time at the same time she is in the office one of us is going to look stupid.


I completely understand your point and will be of the same mindset when I own my own company. Here's my reasons for giving it out:

1. I work for a nationwide company that has a call center that answers for about 19 cities all with different mechanical codes and terms. The CSRs have a tough enough job keeping up with that and consequently lack in thoroughness. 

2. Due to many reasons customers frequently get the run around because the goal is quantity and not quality which is how the CSRs are rated, by how many calls they book. They have quotas and are fired if they're not met. 

3. I tell everyone of my customers that I won't do side work. That's black and white. No exceptions. Too much liability and I work 6 days a week already. 

3. Frequently I have found out that a customer had called and asked to have me paged to call him/her and I would never hear anything about it. 

4. I am not going to start a company here in Houston anyways. 

5. Very often a customer will request me for a certain day and I will already have too many jobs already going and won't find out about the request until the morning of. 

Basically it makes my job much easier and I avg $25K-$30K a month for the company so my bosses never complain. 

Our company has 300 techs just at one office so its a slow moving thing to upgrade to iPads and smart phones. We currently use a POS flip phone and receive texts for our jobs. Some guys have flip phones that allow phone calls but most of us don't.

Apparently we are upgrading to smart phones coming this spring but who knows. If my plans work out I will be outta there anyways.


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

Unclog1776 said:


> No company provided phones?!?!? Whenever we have a vendor pamphlet that needs to be filled out for a new commercial customer usually one of the questions is: are techs equipped with smart phones?
> 
> Extremely useful tool and not using one will be the death of the stubborn old timers.


Preaching to the choir, man. I am going to have the CC swiper and Tablet for invoicing. Modern technology is more efficient.


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

Plumbus said:


> If they don't provide phones, how do they communicate with you? Do they call or text your personal phone?
> The company supplies the tools. The phone is a tool. Therefore, the company should supply the phone.


Yup, a lot of use of my personal phone. I know its lame but the company's been around for 40 years and some of the mentality is that old, too. The first few years I worked there you were told to ask to use the customer's phone or go to a pay phone and call the toll free line. They are slowly upgrading though.


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## Unclog1776 (Feb 5, 2013)

Best Darn Sewer said:


> Yup, a lot of use of my personal phone. I know its lame but the company's been around for 40 years and some of the mentality is that old, too. The first few years I worked there you were told to ask to use the customer's phone or go to a pay phone and call the toll free line. They are slowly upgrading though.


That's nuts. To me that's like asking the customer if he has a pipe wrench you can borrow.


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## ROCKSTARPLUMBER (Dec 14, 2008)

I have a lot of clients that text me VS calling. I love it. Its as awesome as a cell phone could be. Images of tub valves when they dont know what brand it is makes life so much easier as well. And with facetime, trouble shooting for lesser experienced techs makes life super easy too. I can just look at, and talk with them about it as if I were there with them.


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

Unclog1776 said:


> That's nuts. To me that's like asking the customer if he has a pipe wrench you can borrow.


Oh yeah, I agree. I never asked except for home warranty calls and I still do that sometimes. These days its odd but 15 years ago it was the norm to ask to use the customer's phone.


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## Unclog1776 (Feb 5, 2013)

I will say that I miss everyone having nextel 2 ways


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## plbgbiz (Aug 27, 2010)

Unclog1776 said:


> I will say that I miss everyone having nextel 2 ways


Not me.

I prefer customers not hearing both ends of a conversation.


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

I have never understood technicians that allowed their nextel's volume level to stay high enough to hear clearly while in a customer's home. Mine always stayed on silent because I did not want to hear all the conversations.


When I first started our main way of communicating was through a CB radio mounted in our trucks and an old school pager for the info.


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## Hoosier Plumber (Nov 28, 2013)

I love having people text. This afternoon I had two customers call leave messages and then text. 

When they text I can read the text keep working then take a few seconds to respond. Despite having fat fingers and a protective cover I can text rather fast. Even faster when Siri is used.


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## gordyloo (Dec 7, 2013)

Text and calls from customers on my cell is ****ing stupid. Get somebody in the office in heels for the phone crap. I've got work to do!


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## Unclog1776 (Feb 5, 2013)

plbgbiz said:


> Not me. I prefer customers not hearing both ends of a conversation.


You could mute the speaker. You would still hear the chirp but needed to put it to your ear to talk and listen


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## ROCKSTARPLUMBER (Dec 14, 2008)

Unclog1776 said:


> I will say that I miss everyone having nextel 2 ways


Yea. I remember those big bricks when they came out. That tone was so annoying though. That I don't miss.


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## gear junkie (Jun 20, 2008)

I like the text pictures. Allows me to have the right part on the truck when I show up.


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## redbeardplumber (Dec 4, 2012)

If my customers want to text, thats the way we do it. Saves tons of time. Like shootin said, occasionally the first time i talk to a customer is when i show up at the door.

I leave tje option to text on my voicemail if tjey ate comfortable with it.. If i dont pick up the phone i would say 50% of people follow up wirh a text, and then of course i have all their information.... Perfect


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## HP plumber (Sep 4, 2013)

Being a one man show I wish all my call requests were through text messaging it is a lot easier because I don't have to stop what I'm doing to answer the phone especially since some customers feel that if you don't answer the phone then they don't want to use your company. Also if I'm driving it is easier to have the customer send me their information through text so I have a record of it and I don't write it down on a piece of paper and end up losing it.


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## dclarke (Dec 22, 2012)

I wish my company would move forward with technology. I have a dumb phone. It has text but its essentially a flip phone with a keyboard. Very few customers have my number and I try to keep it that way.


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## Redwood (Sep 8, 2008)

Ahhh the tools of the digital age...
You can either use them or keep on wiping lead....:laughing:

I kinda backdoored my boss into the digital age without him realizing what I had done...

I was looking at a pretty heavy quote for a job and wanted to pass it off to him...
He's telling me to drive to the shop to go over it, and I told him to check his e-mail....

Turns out I didn't have to drive to the shop after all and I had a proposal to give to the customer pretty quick...:laughing:

He's come a long way...
Sewer camera inspections are shared via DropBox...

Quite a few of us use Skype to talk to each other and we often use Skype video chat to help each other troubleshoot...


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## tims007 (Aug 31, 2013)

i get tons of texts ... i dislike it as i like the talk and hear voice part of the job and it is easyer to asses a customer ( if you cant be in-front of them) .. texting removes this ... i did an experiment and i redid my adds and removed the word "text" and calls slowed down ... dagnam it ... i guess it is time to relearn and embrace the times and embrace the suck lol


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

tims007 said:


> i get tons of texts ... i dislike it as i like the talk and hear voice part of the job and it is easyer to asses a customer ( if you cant be in-front of them) .. texting removes this ... i did an experiment and i redid my adds and removed the word "text" and calls slowed down ... dagnam it ... i guess it is time to relearn and embrace the times and embrace the suck lol


Haha. At least you saw that it made a difference and made the change back. Accepting change can be tough. I didn't want to accept Pex for a long while. Eventually I came around and now love it. Texting took a while for me to get into personally but now for business it is a great tool.


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## victoryplbaz (May 19, 2012)

I don't mind the texts. But I draw the line when they are texting to just talk. With the iPhone I can now block them if they abuse it. I don't care to get into a personal texting with a customer. I'm the plumber and wish to be just that.


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## redbeardplumber (Dec 4, 2012)

I will say that a customer that has a text relationship with me, also feels that they can more freely text, to victories point... Minor problems and texts that wouldnt hapoen with phone calls.


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## Best Darn Sewer (Dec 23, 2012)

It hasn't been an issue yet for me. Not in the least bit.


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## jtplumber (Jan 21, 2014)

I love texts. I had a super text me the ok to relocate a a floor sink w grease intercepter. I submitted change order and gc tried to make me eat it. Super looked him In the face and said he didn't authorize it. At that point I screen shot the txt n sent to gc. Got paid and super fired on the spot.


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## AKdaplumba (Jan 12, 2010)

Only thing that pisses me off about text is guys texting in sick. Call and sell me on why you are "sick".:no:


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## RW Plumbing (Aug 16, 2010)

jtplumber said:


> I love texts. I had a super text me the ok to relocate a a floor sink w grease intercepter. I submitted change order and gc tried to make me eat it. Super looked him In the face and said he didn't authorize it. At that point I screen shot the txt n sent to gc. Got paid and super fired on the spot.


Always a good idea to get things in writing. Same thing I like about emails.


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## Gene S. (Sep 24, 2013)

Quite a few of my customers text me. It works out well for me. As a matter of fact sometimes when a client calls when I'm on the road or on a job site I will ask them to text me their info if possible. I've never had anyone decline or complain.


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## NORTHSTAR (Sep 16, 2010)

I use text with customers daily. I receive calls from customers while im driving and ask customers to text me the address to make things easier. It also works as a log for me. So I can have info on my smartphone on file. Also my phones GPS keeps every address and the date I navigated. Phones are AWESOME tools to help operate!!! Oh and I also ask customers to send pictures of things so I can prepare ahead of time or even get materials I may not have on the truck.


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## plumberkc (Jun 23, 2011)

I get annoyed when customers text me and usually reply to text by email.


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