Best way to reduce missed or late appointments?

Oh wow this is such a timely question for us too! We're seeing the same thing and it's so frustrating because our techs are really trying their best out there. Thanks so much for bringing this up Brandon!

We started using the En Route status more consistently and that's helped a little because customers at least know someone is actually coming? But we haven't figured out the padding issue either — if we add too much buffer we're basically paying techs to drive around half-empty which our ops manager is not happy about. What's your current buffer looking like?

Also do you let your techs update their own status or is that all coming from dispatch? We let them self-update but I'm wondering if that's part of the problem — sometimes they forget and then customers are just sitting there wondering!

Two things that actually moved the needle for us...

First — we stopped giving customers the appointment time and started giving them the departure time. "We'll leave the previous job at 2 PM and text you when we're 15 min out." Shifts the expectation completely.

Second — we built a simple rule. Any job over 45 min drive time gets a 30-min buffer added automatically. Dispatch can override but they have to justify it. Caught a lot of the surprises that were making us late.

Not sexy but it works.

Departure time instead of arrival. That's interesting. We're still doing "between 1-3 PM" which is obviously the problem.

How did you communicate that change to customers? Pushback?

Some pushback at first... mostly people who just wanted a fixed time to plan around. We explained it as "we'd rather be honest about when we can actually get to you than promise something we can't hit."

Surprisingly most customers preferred the text-when-close approach once they experienced it. The ones who didn't — we weren't a good fit for anyway. Win-win.

Pro tip: if you're not using the Location Services feature in the mobile app, turn it on. Not for tracking your techs — for predicting when they'll actually arrive.

We've got it set so dispatch can see real-time location and adjust the "technician is 15 minutes away" text based on actual traffic conditions, not scheduled departure. Caught us up on a lot of the padding problems Ray mentioned because you're not guessing anymore.

Downside: you need your techs to actually keep the app running. We had to make it part of the job — first one to close out gets first pick of tomorrow's route. Incentives work better than policies.

In my experience location tracking just creates more admin work. Techs forget to charge phones, GPS drains battery, suddenly dispatch is calling about why someone's showing at a gas station.

We went simpler — technicians call the customer when they leave the previous job. Not text. Call. Takes 30 seconds, customer feels looked after, and you catch the "actually I'm running late from lunch" problems before they become a complaint.

Old school but it doesn't break when the app updates.

Fair enough — I've seen the battery drain issue, especially on older Android devices. The call approach works if your techs reliably do it. In my experience that's the bigger variable... but if you've got a crew that actually follows through, that's solid.

Quick checklist of what moved our late rate from 28% to 7%:

• 30-min buffer rule — auto-added for drives >30 min, dispatch can remove with manager approval
• Customer notifications ON — arrival, en route, and 15-min warning. All automated.
• Technician job briefing — required photo of job site + notes review before they mark "in transit"
• End-of-day buffer — last job of day gets extra 45 min; if they finish early, paid anyway

The last one was huge — techs were rushing to beat traffic and causing callbacks. Paid buffer removed the incentive to cut corners.

Love seeing this discussion! We want to make sure you're set up for success with the tools available today.

If you haven't already, check out Real-Time Technician Location Tracking — there's a section on automated customer notifications that pairs well with what Sylvia and Josh are describing.

Also worth noting: we're hearing a lot of feedback about smarter auto-buffering based on historical drive times. Nothing to announce yet, but it's on our radar. Would love to hear what specific rules would work for your operation!

Still having issues with notifications not firing reliably. This ticket says it's fixed but we're seeing 10-15 min delays on SMS.

Makes the "text when 15 min out" approach useless if the text shows up after arrival.