Book electrician and plumber visits by phone

The caller wants two sockets. You have a trap in your hands.

Someone rings to put a visit in the book. You are halfway through a pipe. The cover is off the board. You cannot write and work at the same time.

The caller does not want a minute of the day. They want two extra sockets before the kitchen man comes, or a look at a new bathroom, or the building manager wants the stairwell lights and the roof tank. Those can wait for an hour that is actually free. Water through a ceiling cannot. An assistant that opens with “what day suits you?” on a leak has already chosen the wrong book.

A booked visit needs what they want done, the address, and an hour the book can honour. A leak needs the address and a human who can see the van. Mix them and you have a kitchen that starts late and a flat that is still wet, or two landings expecting you at the same time, or a caller waiting at 9:20 for a morning you never promised.

This is the booking work on a one-van trade: an hour in the book, or a human now. Not both in the same sentence.

Emergency or booked — then the facts

That is the order. Nothing goes into the book until the assistant knows which of the two it is. A day is not the first question. A time is not the first question either, not until it knows this can wait.

Emergency. Water still running. No power in the flat. A smell of burning. Gas, if you do gas. These are not appointments. The assistant takes the address, the floor, what the caller can see, and whether it is still running or still dead, and it puts that on the phone you named. You decide whether to leave the job you are in. It does not offer Thursday at 11:00. It does not say someone will be there in twenty minutes.

Booked work. A new bathroom. Extra sockets. Move a water heater. A building manager who wants the stairwell and a look at the tank. A kitchen that will be ready in two weeks, once the tiles are in. These wait for an hour that is actually free.

A caller who says “can you come now?” is not always an emergency. They want the water heater looked at this afternoon because they are home. The assistant still asks whether anything is running, whether anything is dead, whether they smell burning. If the answers are no, this is a booked look, not a now.

A single call can hold both. “The board is dead — and can you also quote two sockets while you are here?” is an emergency and a quote. Hear both. Write the emergency to you. Leave the sockets as a request on the same note. Confirm neither as a Thursday hour until the right thing has spoken.

Write the first question the way you would for a new hire on their first Saturday. One sentence. Emergency or booked. Skip it and the wrong morning goes in.

A visit is an hour, not a minute

Two sockets is not a new bathroom. A bathroom is not a communal riser. A water heater on a balcony is not one in a shaft you have not seen. The assistant takes what they want done, then the address, then looks at the book you already use.

It offers an hour only if that book shows one free, in a window you already run — a morning, an afternoon, a dated hour if that is how you write the book. If Thursday morning filled while you were under the sink, the book says so. The assistant does not fill the gap with a yes. It takes the address and a number and stops.

Do not give it a hopeful sentence. “We can usually do sockets in the week” will be read out. If an hour is not free until you have looked, do not leave a sentence that sounds as if it is.

If you run a “between nine and twelve” window, write that window down. The assistant repeats it. It does not tighten it to 9:20 to sound helpful. A caller who heard 9:20 will be on the landing at 9:20. You will still be in the previous building, or looking for a place to leave the van on a pedestrian street.

A hold is a rule you already have, or it is nothing. Some of you hold a morning until the day before. Some do not hold without a call-out paid. The assistant follows what you wrote. It does not invent a hold to keep the caller on the line.

A tenant who rings from the landing and a building manager who already has you for the tank on Tuesday are not the same person. The first needs a free hour. The second needs the visit that is already there. Ask which they are before anyone talks about writing a new morning.

A communal look is not a kitchen

The kitchen book does not know whether the building manager has the key to the shaft, or whether the roof tank is opened on Tuesday mornings only. That is a person, a key, and a day the building already lives with.

If you do not do communal work, say so in one line. The assistant repeats it. It does not offer “we will see if we can look at the riser”. A manager who heard a maybe will wait on the roof.

If you do communal work, write who has to be there, which days the shaft is open, and whether you need the street-door code and the board key. A Tuesday tank is not a Wednesday kitchen. A stairwell that needs the lights off is not two sockets in a flat. The assistant takes those facts and only writes a visit when the book and the access line up.

A communal quote is still a visit, not a number. “A price for the stairwell and the tank” waits until you have stood in the shaft. The assistant takes the address and a callback. It does not invent a figure for a riser nobody has seen.

Do not let a communal look become a kitchen hour because the kitchen questions are the ones it knows. “Can you look at the roof tank on Tuesday?” is not “do you have Wednesday morning?”. Answer the question they asked.

Do not squeeze a now over an open kitchen

The job you are already in is in the book. A new “can you come now” is not a reason to cancel it.

The assistant does not fit a leak at 14:00 over a booked kitchen. The kitchen then runs late and the leak still waits. It does not offer “we can squeeze you in at twelve” over a board that is already open. It flags you. You leave, or you do not.

A second emergency arrives while you are in a pipe. Only you know whether you can leave. The assistant must not treat the second now as a booking. It rings you. You say you are coming, or you say you cannot leave, and a human calls the second caller back.

A Saturday booked look is not an emergency just because it is Saturday. Water running or board dead: you. A bathroom quote: the next free window, which may be Tuesday.

After hours belong in the hours you wrote. If you do not run nights, the honest answer on a booked look is the next hour you do run. An after-hours leak still goes to a human. It does not become a midnight visit in the book.

Moving Thursday is one change

Find the job. Release the old hour. Write the new one. Then text. That is one change, in that order.

Split it — cancel first, then hunt — and their own morning is still blocking the day they are asking for. That morning still shows as taken under their name. If the new day is gone, they have lost the old one too.

The new hour still has to exist. Two sockets moving from Wednesday morning to a half-day bathroom are not moving the same visit. The assistant asks what changed, then looks at the book, then offers. If the new kind of visit is not free, the old hour stays until they agree to let it go.

The tiles are not in. The kitchen is delayed. The building manager cannot do Tuesday. Those are changes in the calendar, not emergencies. The assistant checks what is free and writes the new time. It does not offer the old Thursday to the next person until the change is in the book.

A visit that never reached the book — a note on paper, a promise from the landing — is a request, not a move. You finish it.

Test a move on a real name before it runs on the book you use. Pick a visit that is already in. Ask to shift it by one day. Watch whether their own hour blocks them. If it does, fix the order.

A cancel has to go back on the book

People ring in the morning to say they are not ready tomorrow. On a one-van trade that is often a half-day you can still fill, if the book shows it as free before the next quote call.

A cancel that sits in a notebook, or in a transcript for the evening, is a morning the next caller is told you do not have. They ring the next van on the list. At six you have an empty half-day and a full book on paper.

The assistant writes the cancel into the same book it writes visits into, the same hour. Then the next person who asks for a look can be offered that morning. A cancel after you have already left the yard is still worth taking — you would rather know than ring a bell nobody answers — but it is not a refill you should promise.

Say the cancel rule when the visit is written, if you have one. Many of you do not take a deposit and do not chase a no-show. Do not let the assistant describe a charge you will not make. A rule you do not enforce is a sentence that will be read back to you on the landing, with the tools already on the step.

What the confirmation may say

The text goes out after the visit is in the book. Day, window, address, what they asked for. The language of the call. A caller who rang in English gets the text in English. You do not set a language per job. The assistant works in 70+ languages and follows the one they started in.

An arrival minute does not belong in that text. “Thursday morning, someone will call if we are delayed” is honest. “See you at 9:20” is not, not unless that is how you actually write the book.

A published call-out may go in the text only if you put that figure in and told it to say it. A bathroom price, a socket price, a rewire: those stay out.

If the book cannot be reached, there is no text. A callback is not a confirmation. You finish it.

A reminder the day before is useful when a kitchen depends on tiles. That reminder is still a confirm, not a new booking, and it still must not invent a tighter time.

Half a day and forty minutes are not the same slot

Write how long you actually block. Two sockets in a new build may be a short visit. Two sockets in a 1970s block may be a morning of chasing. A new bathroom is a half-day or more. A water-heater swap on a balcony is not a water-heater swap in a shaft.

The assistant should not treat every booked look as the same length. If you block bathrooms as a half-day and sockets as a short visit, say so. Offering a bathroom in a socket gap is how Thursday overruns into the next job. Offering sockets across a bathroom morning is how you leave a half-day half empty.

Do not let it invent the length from the description. If it cannot tell, it takes a short visit or a callback, not a half-day it guessed from the word “bathroom”.

Electrical only, plumbing only, or both: the book has to know. A gas boiler should not land on an electrician who does not touch gas. A dead board should not land on a plumbing-only van. A clear no is better than a Thursday you then have to cancel from the street.

How CITT handles it

1. Emergency or booked first. Then the facts that belong to that request. A day is not the opening question.
2. It reads the book you already use before it says an hour is free, and writes the visit into that same book.
3. A leak is not written as a visit. It rings the phone you named. No invented arrival.
4. A communal look is a second check, against the access you actually have and the day the manager can open the shaft.
5. A move is one change on a visit that started with you. A paper note is a request.
6. A cancel goes back on the book the same hour, so the next caller can be offered that morning.
7. Several calls are answered at once. A morning burst is not a stack of busy tones.
8. It texts after the book is written, in the language of the call — 70+ languages — and only for what was actually confirmed.
9. What the call cannot finish becomes a tagged note — an unpublished price, an hour the book will not confirm, a communal quote, a leak.

What it will not do

It will not invent a free hour. If the book does not show one, the caller gets a request taken, not a yes.

It will not invent an arrival time. It will not invent a quote. A published call-out is the only figure it may repeat, and only if you gave it that figure to say.

It will not book a leak as a free hour on Thursday. It will not squeeze a now over a kitchen that is already open. It will not tighten a morning window to a minute to sound helpful.

It will not take gas, communal work, or the other trade if you said you do not. It will not decide that you will leave the job you are in. It rings you.

It will not send a confirmation for a visit that is not in the book. It will not put a hopeful “see you at 9:20” in that text.

What these calls sound like

The kind of call first. Then the facts. Then the book. Then only the sentence that is true — the visit is written, the leak is on your phone, the window is the one you use.

There is no “we can be there in twenty minutes”. There is no “we can squeeze you in at twelve” over a job that is already open. There is no text for a Wednesday the book did not show.

If the assistant is friendly and still writes the same morning twice, two kitchens wait. Put the person who rang about two sockets on an hour the book actually shows, and keep the leak on your phone.

What you set up first

Put the assistant on the number on the van with a forward-on-no-answer rule, so a free pair of hands still takes the call. Then:

1. The first split. Emergency or booked. One sentence, the way you would say it to a new hire.
2. The book you already use. How long a bathroom blocks. How long sockets block. Morning and afternoon windows.
3. What you actually take. Electrical, plumbing, or both. Communal or not. Gas or not.
4. The two forbidden sentences. No invented arrival. No invented quote.
5. A published call-out only if you want that number said.
6. How a move and a cancel are written back into the same book.
7. Communal access. Who has the key. Which days the shaft opens. Door code, floor, who will be in.
8. The hours you do not run. Evenings, Sundays, August. Empty hours, invented visits.

Then read the first fifty visits yourself. Kind of call, address, window, whether a leak was booked as a Thursday, whether a morning was tightened to a minute. You are looking for the work nobody entered: the shaft key, the tiles, the trade you do not do, the “now” that was treated as a booking.

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