Book elevator visits without mixing a release and an inspection
Quick summary
- The assistant reads the book before it offers a morning, so a trapped person is never offered as an inspection hour.
- A door look and a modernization survey are different bookings. Get that wrong and a manager sits in twenty minutes reserved for a cabinet.
- Someone inside or not first. Then empty car, door, inspection or modernization. Then the book.
- Anything that sounds like a reset sequence, a forced door, or a twenty-minute arrival stays a transfer or a callback.
- If the assistant cannot read the book, it takes a callback. It does not guess.
- The assistant texts the window, the building, and who must be there with the machine-room key.
TL;DR
You are in a machine room. A caller who wants a morning will not wait for a callback just to learn whether Thursday is free. An assistant can book those mornings if it reads the book first, treats a release as different from an inspection, and asks whether someone is inside before it places anything. Someone inside is a transfer. An inspection is a morning. A reset question is not a new visit type — the technician is at the controller. If the book cannot be reached, the assistant does not guess. It takes the request and says so. The assistant texts the window, the building, and who holds the key.
Key takeaways
- Give the assistant the types and their real durations before you let it book — release, door look, periodic inspection, modernization survey.
- Mark machine-room mornings and inspection days in the same book it reads, including August.
- Test a move on an existing inspection and on a door look, separately, before you test a modernization.
- Turn on the SMS at the moment of booking, with who must be there and which building.
- If the book cannot be reached, the only answer is a callback.
- Check the first fifty bookings by hand. That is when you find the hour that was a trapped person put into an inspection.
When someone wants a morning and you are in a cabinet
One of you is inside a controller. The other is on a landing with a door. The phone rings.
A manager wants Thursday at nine for the periodic inspection. A resident wants someone now because the cabin has stopped. A second manager wants twenty minutes for a door that will not close. You cannot pick up. The cabinet is still open.
Those three callers are asking for a time. They are not asking for the same time.
The first one needs you, two hours, and a machine-room key. The second needs a human who knows where the van is, not a hole in Thursday — and first, whether someone is inside. The third needs a short look on a landing. If the assistant treats them as the next free hour, Thursday morning fills with a release that should have been a transfer, the inspection arrives while you are still on that cabin, and the door is offered on a morning you have already closed.
The assistant books only if three things are true. The type is one you offer. The morning is free in the book the van works from. Nothing in the call is a reset sequence, a forced door, or a twenty-minute arrival. If someone is inside, it does not book. It transfers.
A manager who has to wait for a callback just to learn whether Thursday works has time to ring the next van. That is why the morning has to be finished on this call. It is also why a guessed hour is worse than no hour. The manager is at the door with a key. You are in someone else’s cabinet.
Inside or not, then the type, then the book
The order is the split, then what kind of visit, then whether that morning exists.
A release is not an inspection. An inspection is not a modernization survey. A modernization survey is not twenty minutes on a landing. Write the types with the minutes you actually spend, or the assistant will drop the next name into the first hole.
Someone inside is never a type in the book. It is a transfer.
August is not a hole. If the van is dark, those days are closed in the same book. An inspection booked into a beach week is a manager you then have to call, and a certificate that waits until September.
What must not be booked
A reset session. There is no such visit. If they ask which buttons, that is a note and a refusal, not a Thursday at eleven in which the assistant reads a sequence.
A trapped person. The assistant does not put “someone inside at 10:20” in the book as a booking. It transfers.
A modernization price meeting. They can book a survey. They cannot book a number. The quote is yours, after you have stood in the shaft.
If the book cannot be reached, the only honest sentence is that someone will call back. A spoken Thursday that never landed is a wasted key.
Moving a morning without losing the building
People ring to move the inspection, then mention a cabin. Those are two jobs. The assistant moves the inspection only after it has asked inside or not. The cabin is a separate note or a transfer.
If they say “move Thursday” and they have both a door look and an inspection on the file, the assistant asks which one.
Test this on a real inspection and a real door look before you let it touch a modernization. The first fifty bookings are where you find the hour that was a trapped person dropped into a certificate morning.
What the SMS has to carry
The window. The building. Who must be there with the machine-room key. The line that nobody will give a resident a sequence before you arrive.
A reminder that only says “Thursday 09:00” is how you arrive to a locked landing. A reminder that names Papanastasiou and Kostas with the key is how the morning starts on time.
Send it in the language of the call.
What you set first
Write the visit types with minutes. Mark who is out on Monday. Mark August. Give it the sentence that forbids a reset. Give it the same-day list: someone inside. Let cancellations write back to the book.
Then book one inspection, move it, cancel it, and read the book with your own eyes. If Thursday is still taken by a visit that no longer exists, do not open the rest of the week.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
Machine-room mornings are not landing minutes
A door look on the third floor is a bag and a pair of hands. A periodic inspection is a different day. The cabinet, the logs, the certificate — that is not a gap between two doors.
If the assistant only knows “lift visit”, it will offer the manager the half hour you left after a door. You will spend that half hour explaining why you have to come back. The manager will ring the van that already knew the inspection was a morning.
Write the minutes you actually stay. A hydraulic plant is not a traction cabinet. A modernization survey is not an inspection. The book has to carry those as different types.
Building managers book for two shafts at once. That is two visits unless you marked them as one morning. The assistant asks.
The key is part of the booking
No key, no inspection. The confirmation that does not name who opens the machine room is how you idle on the landing. The assistant asks, on every inspection morning, who will be there. If the caller is a resident who does not have the key, the morning is not confirmed. It becomes a callback to the manager.
The assistant should not tell a stranger that a key is in a box.
Saturday inspections, if you take them, live in the same book. A release does not belong there as a booking. A trapped person is a transfer any day.
What a good booking sounds like
Inside or not. Type. Building. Key. Morning that exists. Refusal of the sequence, said out loud, if they asked. SMS in the language they used.
There is no “come at 10:20”. There is no “press the red one until we get there”. There is no quote from a cabin photo. There is no modernization dropped into a door gap.
If the assistant is friendly and still puts a trapped person into an inspection morning, you own that hour. Put the person who rang about the cabin at 11:10 on a transfer, and put the inspection on a morning the book can honour.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads the book before offering a morning | Yes, the book the van works from | Yes | Usually not — takes a message |
| Books evenings and Saturday inspections | Yes, if you marked them | No | Sometimes |
| Treats a release as different from an inspection | If you marked the two types | Yes | Rarely sees the week |
| Starts with someone inside or not | Yes — before it looks at the book | Yes | Often jumps to what morning |
| Books a reset session for a resident | Never — the technician is at the controller | The technician does, at the cabinet | Sometimes books "a reset chat" |
| Sends the confirmation and who holds the key | Automatically, by SMS | If they remember | Sometimes |
What a month of empty inspection mornings costs
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- Two people. About 20 booked mornings a month for inspections, door looks, or a modernization survey.
- An empty machine-room morning is not given to someone else the same day.
- About 10% of booked mornings arrive with no key, or nobody comes. Check your own figure. Vans vary.
- Recoverable value of a used inspection morning, €120. Put your own figure in. A modernization and a door look are not the same.
- A reminder that names who holds the machine-room key cuts empty mornings by a third. Challenge this first.
- 20 mornings × 10% = about 2 empty inspection mornings a month.
- 2 × €120 = €240 of reserved time sitting empty.
- A third avoided returns about €80 a month.
- Over 11 working months — 11 × €80.
Roughly €880 a year, from a text that names the key, not only the hour.
What it costs
CITT is pay as you go: no packages, no minimum, no contract. The current rates — the monthly fee per number and the per-minute rate — are on the pricing section of the home page, which is the only place they are published.
Frequently asked questions
Can it book an inspection while I am in someone else's machine room?
It reads the same book the van works from and checks the morning before offering it. A day you have closed because you are already on releases, or because the other person is on doors, is never offered as an inspection, if you marked it. Door looks can still be offered that day if someone will be on a landing. If the assistant cannot reach the book at that moment, it does not guess. It takes the request as a callback and says so. A morning the van has no record of is worse than no morning. The manager turns up with a key and nobody is free.
What about someone moving an existing morning?
The assistant asks someone inside or not first, then inspection or door, then the building on the file, and treats the move as one change. Handled as cancel, then book, Thursday is still taken by their own visit, and they are told that morning is not free. A client who has a door look and an inspection on the same phone must say which visit is moving.
Will it book a time to talk them through the reset?
It will book an inspection, or a door look, if you allow those types. It will not book a session in which the assistant itself reads a sequence to a resident. A reset is work at the controller — a person, not the voice on the phone.
Should it book a modernization against any free hour?
A modernization survey is a long morning and a machine-room key. Mark how long you actually need. The assistant takes the building and who will be there. It does not drop a three-hour survey into a twenty-minute door gap. It does not invent a price from a photo of the cabin.
Who sends the confirmation?
The assistant, by SMS, in the language of the conversation, at the moment of booking, including the building and who must be there with the key. The reminder goes out ahead of the morning on the schedule you set. Neither requires anyone in the van to type a number.
Can clients cancel through it too?
Yes, and you should let them, especially on inspections after a power cut. A cancellation the van hears about the day before is a morning that can go to a door that still will not close. The same cancellation arriving as a no-show is a cabinet unused. Cancellations are written back to the book the same way bookings are.
