Ready-for-pickup and visit reminders for IT shops
Quick summary
- A case is still open and a van hour is still out. Two lists sit on the counter. Nobody will work them tonight.
- Remind tomorrow first — drop-offs from the bench book, visits from the van book. Those are not one list.
- Ready-for-pickup comes off the mark you put on the ticket. Do not say it is ready if the box is empty.
- Waiting for a part, or we need to speak before we continue, is a different call from ready.
- The assistant will not name a fault on the way out, and it will not speak a repair price, unless that line is the one on the wall.
- Last month’s quiet tickets are a different call from today’s ready mark. Mix them and you ring people about a laptop they already collected.
TL;DR
A case is still open. Tomorrow’s drop-offs and on-sites have not been reminded. The tickets show who is marked ready, who is waiting for a part, and who you need to speak to before you continue. Nobody rings them, because the hour those calls belong to is the hour both hands are still in a chassis. The assistant works the lists you already keep: it reminds tomorrow’s windows, calls the ready marks, and asks the “speak before we continue” names whether they can talk. It will not invent a status. It will not invent a repair price.
Key takeaways
- Turn on tomorrow’s reminders first, from the live books — bench for a drop-off, van for an on-site.
- Build the ready list from the mark on the ticket, not from every machine on the shelf. Offer a pickup window. Do not name the fault.
- Add the speak-before-we-continue list next: they need to hear from you, or you need a yes before you wipe or go on.
- Write the outbound script so it cannot say ready, or speak a price, unless the live ticket is on that row.
- Take any number off the list that asks not to be called, the same day, before the next pass.
- Listen to the first fifty outbound recordings for a named fault, a figure, or a ready sentence that was not on the mark.
The case is still open. Nobody has worked the lists.
Eighteen-thirty. The last open tower is still on its side. A screw is back in, or it is not. If you ran the van, the bag is just inside the door. Someone should be tagging tomorrow’s drop-offs. On the same counter sit two sheets nobody will touch tonight.
One is ready. You marked the ticket. The laptop is on the shelf. They do not know. They will ring you on Saturday, or they will come and stand at the glass, or they will assume it is not done and buy another machine two doors along.
The other is speak-before-we-continue. Waiting for a part. You need a yes before a wipe. You wrote “we need to speak to you before we continue” on the ticket and then both hands went back into a case.
Tomorrow four people are booked to drop a laptop. Two more are booked as on-sites. None of them have been reminded.
You will not make those calls. The hour they belong to is the hour a screw is still over a board, or the bag is still open at someone’s office.
That is outbound on this number. Not a campaign. Not “we could also look at the other laptop”. The names the ticket already marked ready. The people who already have a window tomorrow. The people you already said you needed to speak to.
Tomorrow, the ticket, the ready mark
Four piles. Turn them on in this order. Do not mash them into one pass.
Tomorrow’s times. This evening, or first thing if the window is a morning drop-off. The list is short because it comes from the books you already use, not from a sheet someone exported on Wednesday. Bench book for a drop-off. Van book for an on-site. Those are not one list. Time still good? They took it to the next shop this afternoon? You are already out in the van at that hour? If they need to move a drop-off, release the counter window, take the new time only if someone is actually in, then send the SMS. If they need to move an on-site, that is the van book. Do not park a visit on a drop-off hour. Do not put a laptop against a street door.
A reminder can confirm that the time is in the book. It cannot confirm that a machine is ready. Ready is a different list. The SMS follows the language of the booking — 70+ languages — and names the window, not a fault.
Ready-for-pickup. From the mark you put on the job. Offer a pickup window the bench book actually has. Take the name on the ticket if you need it said back. Do not name the fault. Do not quote a repair unless that figure is written on that ticket for them to hear. If they ask what was wrong, stop offering the window as if that were the answer, and put the question in front of you.
Speak before we continue. The same evening, or the next morning if that is when they answer. Not a diagnosis. Two honest endings: they can talk to you now, or you book a time for you to ring. Write down which. Do not ask for a password on the line. Do not say the files are gone. Do not say the board is gone. Those sentences belong to a person who can see the machine.
Names that went quiet. Last month’s tickets. The person who never collected. The person who said they would think about the look and then stopped answering. These are not today’s ready call. Shorter. Faster opt-out. Ask whether they still want the machine, or whether they still want the look. Do not describe a fault. Description is how you claim a diagnosis you have not given them in person.
Ready is a mark you put on the job
This is the call shops mean to make and do not.
They left it Tuesday. It is now Thursday. You marked it ready at four. They are on the sofa with a weekend they wanted the laptop for, or with work in the morning. If nobody rings, they assume it is still on the bench. On Saturday they buy another machine, or they stand at your glass angry, or they never come back and the laptop sits.
The assistant can make that evening call because it is not inside a chassis. The script is small on purpose.
Your ticket is marked ready for pickup. This name, this device, this day they left it. Do you want to collect tomorrow, or Saturday if Saturday is pickup only?
That is the whole useful conversation. Anything longer starts to explain, and explaining on this call is how a board, an “almost done”, or a figure gets into their evening from a voice that cannot see the bench.
Do not run this call against a name that is not marked ready. The ticket already shows who can collect. Thanking someone for a machine that is still open is how you look careless before you have said a useful sentence.
Do not run it against a ticket that says waiting for a part. If the mark is not ready, the honest call is speak-before-we- continue, or no call. It is not “it should be soon”.
A charger or a bag left with the machine is a note on the same ticket. The assistant can read that note. It cannot invent that the charger is in the drawer. If the note is blank, it says it does not have that on the ticket, and it leaves the question for you.
Two people who share a surname must hear the device back, not just the name. Papadopoulos and a grey Lenovo is not Papadopoulos and a Dell.
Waiting for a part, or waiting for them
The cleanest outbound job on the bench after ready, if you let it stay a ticket job.
The name is already yours. The mark is already there. Waiting for a part. We need to speak to you before we continue. The offer is a callback from you, or a time they can come to the counter if you wrote that they should. The assistant does not become the person who explains the part.
It is not a new-work call. If they ask whether you can also look at the other laptop while they are in, that becomes a request for a new drop-off, not a confirmation that you can do it tomorrow over an already full bench.
A wipe or a reinstall they have not agreed to is not a ready mark. The assistant must not treat “we need to speak” as “come and collect”. A machine you were about to wipe is not a machine they should pick up in the morning without that conversation.
August: if the shop is closed, ready waits on the shelf and the call waits with it. Do not offer Saturday pickup in a week you marked shut.
A caller who wants to move a pickup follows the bench book, not the van book. Set the hours you actually run. Saturday pickup only, if that is you. The assistant should say it at the end of a ready call it makes.
“Can you just format it so my cousin can take it Friday?” is not a reception answer. Stop offering the pickup as if the wipe were already agreed. Take the words. Put them in front of you. A human decides what happens to the drive.
A status you put on the line
On an inbound call they chose you. On an outbound call you chose the moment. You put a status or a figure into their evening. If that status was wrong, or that figure was last week’s wall, you wrote the card.
The usual version is “it’s almost done” and then a day. Almost done is a guess. Ready is a mark. If the mark is not there, that paragraph cannot be spoken. Telling someone they can collect a machine that is still open is worse than a missed call. They cross town. You own the Saturday.
The other version is the fault. “It was just the charger.” “The board is gone.” Those sentences belong on a call where a person can point at the machine. The assistant can say that you need them, and it can book that call. It cannot be the messenger of a diagnosis.
A third version is the price. “It will be around eighty.” “Less than a new one.” The assistant repeats a figure only when that figure is on that ticket, or is the line you already say before you take a machine. It does not estimate. It does not agree that their guess is close.
A fourth is the mix. A ready name gets offered a new drop-off for another laptop. A tomorrow-reminder gets told their machine is ready. The person at the counter already keeps those piles separate. The assistant has to be told, or Thursday evening will have a pickup customer holding a repair conversation and a drop-off being offered a ready sentence.
A fifth is the password, asked on the speak-before-we-continue call because it would move the job. The assistant does not take a password as a string. It books a time for you, or it asks them to bring it written down.
Tomorrow’s drop-off and tomorrow’s van
Reminders look small. They save the window that actually costs you.
A Thursday drop-off that nobody confirms is a person who already took the laptop two doors along, and a counter hour you cannot give to the next caller. A Friday on-site that nobody confirms is a van that leaves for a door that will not open, and a bench that sat empty.
The assistant checks the matching book before it offers a move. If they need to shift Thursday at 11:00, that is one change: release, then place. It does not cancel first and search second. It does not offer a van hour from the bench book.
If they do not pick up, and the drop-off is still tomorrow, do not leave a message that restates the device and what is wrong with it. A short “please call us back about tomorrow’s appointment” is enough, plus the SMS from the calendar. Three failed reminders on the same number is not a reason to try a fourth with a livelier script. Take them off tomorrow’s list and let a person decide whether the window can be released.
On a ready call: one more try the next morning, then a note on the ticket. On speak-before-we-continue: the retries you set, then a note for the bench. Do not invent a livelier status to get them to answer.
The language of the last conversation stays the language of this one, if you have it on the record. A caller who booked in English should not get a Greek reminder about Thursday. A caller who booked in Greek should not get an English call about a ready laptop. If you do not know, start in Greek and switch. Seventy-plus languages. The SMS follows the language of the call.
What the assistant may not say
Outbound keeps the inbound bans, and adds one.
No ready sentence unless the mark is on the ticket. No named fault. No repair price that is not on that ticket or on the wall. And no invented next job — not “we could also look at the other laptop”, not a remote session on a machine that will not power.
A follow-up after a ready mark is a question about collection. The assistant does not explain the repair. They will hear that from you, or they will read whatever you wrote on the ticket for them to hear. A speak-before-we-continue call gets them on the phone. It does not decide a wipe. It does not promise the files.
Drop-off, on-site or already with us still matters on the way out. A name from yesterday’s ready list is not offered a Thursday van hour for a printer they have never mentioned. Get the first field wrong and every field after it is filed against the wrong book.
The shelf is not a ticket. Last week’s memory is not a ticket. The assistant says ready only when the mark says so at that moment. If the ticket is silent, stale, or unreachable, it takes the name and leaves the status to you. It does not say yes because the laptop has been sitting there since Tuesday.
A complaint about last week’s job, heard on a ready call, is the same kind of call as inbound: take the name, take what they said, put it in front of you. Do not offer a free redo from the phone.
What you set up first
- Tomorrow’s lists, from the live books. Bench and van separately. Not a spreadsheet from Wednesday.
- Ready-for-pickup from the mark, not a dump of every machine on the shelf. Name, device, day they left it, charger note if there is one.
- Speak-before-we-continue from the tickets that actually say it. Waiting for a part. We need to speak. Not the ones you merely wish would ring.
- A hard stop on status and prices unless the live ticket is attached to that row. One line that forbids “almost done”. One line that forbids a figure from a description.
- Quiet hours, retries, and an opt-out that writes the same day, before the next pass of the list.
- Saturday pickup marked separately from a new drop-off. August, if you close. How a pickup works, and that they should bring identity if you ask for it.
Then listen to the first fifty outbound recordings, including the short ones. You are listening for a “it’s ready” on an unmarked ticket, a named board, a figure, a password, a second laptop that was not on the card. If any of those appear, stop the list until the script is tighter.
Give it the published line it may repeat before you take a machine, if you have one, and do not give it a repair figure it would read out. One line that forbids advice about a format or a wipe. One line that forbids mixing a ready name onto a new drop-off.
Last month is not this ticket
A number marked ready this afternoon is a continuation. A number you have not spoken to since last month is a cold call, even if they once left a Dell and never collected. Shorter script. Faster opt-out. Mixing those two groups is how you ring people about a laptop they already picked up two doors along.
A number that asked not to be called comes off before the next pass, not after a complaint. If you ring last month’s quiet names at all, ask whether they still want the machine. No fault. No “it’s probably the charger, still”.
Thursday evening is a good hour for tomorrow’s drop-offs and for the ready marks you ticked at four. It is a bad hour to start a “still want the laptop” pass at names from last month, unless you choose that on purpose.
Write the two forbidden sentences so nobody improves them later: we do not say ready unless the mark says so; we do not give a figure that is not on the ticket or on the wall. And the third, for outbound only: we do not invent another job that would fit. Listen to the first fifty recordings yourself.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evening-before reminder | Yes, from the matching book | If they remember after the case | If you sent them the list |
| Ready from the ticket mark | Offers a pickup the book has | When someone has a free minute | A generic “your machine is ready” |
| Speak before we continue | Asks if they can talk, then flags you | When they get off the bench | If you wrote a script |
| Says it is almost done | Never — only the mark | Tempted, to clear the shelf | Risk, if the sheet is stale |
| Speaks a repair price | No — wall line or a person | Yes, if they have opened it | Should not |
| Mixes a ready name onto a new drop-off | No — two lists, two books | Keeps the piles apart | One script, both jobs |
| Stops when the person says stop | If you configure the list | If they note it | If the list is clean |
What an uncalled ready list leaves sitting on the shelf
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- A one-bench shop. About 40 tickets are marked ready this month, from the book you already keep.
- The counter reaches about 18 of them by hand. 22 names are still on the list.
- Of those 22, this example assumes 12 would have collected in the same week if someone had offered a pickup window. Put your own take-up in here.
- A finished job sitting on the shelf is about €70 of work already done in this example — put your own ticket figure in before you trust the answer.
- A machine that sits another week is not usually collected by a walk-in who happened to pass.
- 12 unoffered pickups × €70 = €840 of finished work still on the shelf in one month.
- Over eleven working months — 11 × €840. Put your own months in if you close in August.
- That figure ignores the Thursday drop-offs nobody reminded the evening before. Those sit on a different list.
About €9,240 a year of finished work that was already marked ready, waiting for a phone call. Change the take-up and the ticket figure.
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
What should it call about first?
Tomorrow’s times. The list is short, it is already in the two books, and silence has a concrete cost: a pair of hands at the counter, or a van hour. After that, ready-for-pickup from the mark on the ticket. Speak-before-we-continue comes third. Leave “we could also look at the other laptop” until you have watched those three run without inventing a status.
Can it tell them the laptop is ready?
Only if you marked the ticket ready. A reminder can confirm that a drop-off is in the bench book. That is a fact about the window, not about the shelf. Ready is a box you tick. If the box is empty, the assistant does not say almost done, and it does not invent Thursday at 16:00. If you cannot live with a machine saying ready, send the SMS from the mark and keep a person on anything that might become a status question.
What does the speak-before-we-continue call actually ask?
Whether they can talk to you, or whether you should leave a time for a callback. It does not name the fault. It does not say the files are gone. It does not ask for a password on the line. Those sentences belong to a person who can see the machine. The assistant gets them on the phone, or it books a time for you to ring.
Can it tell them the files are safe?
No. That is not a reception answer. The assistant notes that the files matter and puts their words in front of you. It does not promise a recovery, and it does not walk them through a format while you are still in a case. A human looks at the drive.
What if someone says they do not want these calls?
They come off the list the same day, and they stay off. Outbound only works if the bench is careful with the names it already has. A complaint about a call they did not ask for will cost more goodwill than the pickup you might have cleared.
Will it quote a repair on the follow-up?
It repeats a figure only when that figure is the line you already say, or a number you wrote on that ticket for them to hear. It will not estimate, round, or give a sense of the board. A price asked from a description is the same trap. The assistant takes the request and flags you. You have opened the machine, or you have not.
