Book crane hours without inventing a permit or the machine
Quick summary
- The assistant reads the machine book before it offers hours, so a site look is never offered as a four-hour hire.
- A look in the street and hours already priced are different bookings. Get that wrong and a piano sits in a slot reserved for a roof.
- What is being lifted, which floor, permit in or not — then the book.
- Anything that sounds like this afternoon, a stamped permit, or wind-is-fine stays a callback.
- If the assistant cannot read the book, it takes a callback. It does not guess.
- The assistant texts the hours, the type, and what to have ready, so the street you arrive to is a street the crane can stand in.
TL;DR
The crane is on a piano. A caller who wants hours will not wait for a callback just to learn whether Thursday is free. An assistant can hold those hours if it reads the book first, treats a site look as different from a priced hire, and asks what is being lifted before it places anything. This afternoon is not a booking if the machine is on another job. A permit is not a guess. Wind is not a yes. If the book cannot be reached, the assistant does not guess. It takes the request and says so. The assistant texts the hours, the type, and the permit reminder.
Key takeaways
- Give the assistant the types and their real durations before you let it book — site look, window lift, terrace, hours confirmation, wind hold.
- Mark permit-not-in days, wind holds and August in the same book it reads.
- Test a move on an existing hours confirmation and on a site look, separately, before you test a new piano.
- Turn on the SMS at the moment of booking, with the permit and street list for that type.
- 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 piano put onto a machine that was already on a roof.
When someone wants hours and the crane is on a piano
One of you is on the tag line. The other is in the cab. The phone rings.
A owner wants Thursday morning for a piano out a window. A person with a jacuzzi on a truck wants this afternoon. A client wants twenty minutes for someone to look at a street. You cannot pick up. The outriggers are down.
Those three callers are asking for time. They are not asking for the same time.
The first one needs a machine, hours, and a permit in a narrow street. The second needs a different reach, maybe a spider. The third needs a look, not a hire. If the assistant treats them as the next free hour, Thursday morning fills with a look, the piano arrives while you are walking a terrace, and this afternoon is offered on a machine that is still on a roof.
The assistant books only if three things are true. The type is one you offer. The hours are free in the book the yard works from. Nothing in the call is a permit you do not have, a wind-is-fine, or this afternoon on a machine that is busy. If any of those fail, it takes a request and says someone will call back.
A person who has to wait for a callback just to learn whether Thursday works has time to ring the next yard. That is why the hours have to be finished on this call. It is also why a guessed confirmation is worse than no confirmation. The piano is on the landing. The crane is in another street.
A site look is not four hours of a truck crane
You already know this. The assistant does not, until you teach it.
A site look is twenty minutes in a street. Someone is there to see outriggers, a window, a terrace. You stay on the other machine. The caller is told who should be there with the key.
A window lift is a machine, hours, a permit if the crane stands in the road. You have come off the other job. The street is clear. The stamp is in.
A terrace jacuzzi is a different reach. Hours already priced are a confirmation, not a new hire. Wind holding the machine is a flag, not a booking.
If the assistant cannot tell these apart, you spend Thursday on people who only needed a look, and the person who needed a machine is given twenty minutes at the gate.
Give it the types and the real durations before it is allowed to offer anything:
- Site look
- Window lift
- Terrace or roof
- Hours already priced, confirmation or move
- Wind hold
- Anything you do not want booked at all
People who just bought a jacuzzi often call from the truck. The assistant can offer a look tomorrow. It cannot offer this afternoon if the crane is on a piano. Do not give a hours confirmation to that caller, and do not give a piano a twenty-minute look when they asked for the machine.
What is being lifted, then the floor, then any hours
The first question on this line is not when they are free. The first question is what is being lifted, which floor, and whether a permit is already in.
Those are different facts. Different machines. Usually different lengths of hire. A piano out a third-floor window is not a condenser onto a roof. A confirmation is not a first look. The confirmation, the reminder, and the permit list are different.
A caller who is both still gets two notes. If they want a look and also hours for a piano, they get a look and a hire line. Do not squeeze a street walk and a window lift into twenty minutes because they arrived as one call.
On a change it is the same question, first. “Move Thursday” is not enough. Thursday might be the look or the piano. Both can share one mobile number. If the assistant picks the first match, it moves the wrong line.
Ask which job. Then the address or the name on the file. Then find the existing hours. Then move them.
Two clients in the same street are common. Two pianos after a moving week are common. A surname plus “the piano” is not always enough. Take the floor. Take the street. Do not invent a match because the first three letters agree.
If they will not say which line, it is not a booking yet and it is not a change yet. Take the name and the number and say someone will call back. Do not guess.
Hours you have already closed
You already know which mornings the machines are out and which mornings the book is closed because a permit did not come, or because wind has held the crane. Put those mornings in the book the assistant reads. If they exist only on a pad in the cab, the assistant cannot see them.
On a closed morning you still take the phone, or the assistant does. A hire is not offered. A site look can still be offered if someone will be free to walk the street.
If a closed morning is missing from that book, the assistant will offer 08:00 on a day both machines are already out. The client arrives with a piano. The crane is in another street.
Hire days are for work you have already priced and agreed.
August needs its own dates. Some of you take the machines to the island. The published number still rings. Set the closure dates. Do not let the assistant hold hours in a week when the yard is dark.
If you do not pack pianos, say so before a window lift is offered as if it included packing. A yard that only sells hours of a machine should say so on the first call, not after a booked morning.
Moving hours that already exist
A caller who already has a Thursday is not making a new booking. They are changing one.
Handled as cancel-then-book, Thursday is still taken by their own machine. The assistant tells them those hours are not free.
The order is: which job, address or name on the file, find the existing hours, release them, place the new ones. One change. Reversed, or split into two independent operations, the client is blocked by their own morning.
Let them cancel as well, especially on hours after wind or a refused permit. A cancellation the day before is a morning you can give to someone whose roof is still waiting. The same cancellation arriving as a no-show is a machine gone. Write cancellations back to the book the same way bookings are written.
A same-day move when wind has held the machine is tighter. If Thursday is already a list of moved hours and they want to put a new piano onto Thursday, refuse the new piano and offer a later window, or take a callback. Do not squeeze them onto a crane that is already promised.
This afternoon is not a reason to invent the machine
People ask while they book. A owner moving a piano will ask whether you can come at four. A person booking a terrace will ask whether the permit will be stamped. A client booking hours will ask whether the wind is fine.
None of those is a booking type.
The assistant says the book has to show the machine is free. Then it finishes the hours, if there is a type you actually offer. It does not invent a “four o’clock”. It does not name a permit to win the booking. It does not say the wind is fine. It does not pretend the δήμος will stamp it by Thursday.
If they press — “just put this afternoon in, I have the other yard on the line” — the assistant still refuses the hours if the book does not have them. It can offer a look if that morning is free. The hire stays yours, after the book.
A piano already half out of the window is not a booking. It is a flag to a phone you actually hold. The assistant collects a name and a number while it is connecting. It does not tell them to skip the permit.
What to have ready, in the same text as the hours
Hours in a street with no permit are not hours you can use. A window lift with cars parked on the outrigger pads is not a lift. A terrace job with no one at the door is a machine you drive to and park.
The assistant texts the hours, the type, and what to have ready — permit in, street clear, who will be there, piano not on the sill until the crane is standing. That text is the difference between a morning you can use and a morning you stand down.
If they booked in English, the text goes out in English. If they booked in Greek, it goes out in Greek. 70+ languages. The reminder follows the same language.
Do not let the assistant text a hire list for a look. The piano does not need to be at the window for a street walk. It needs to be ready for a lift. Mix those lists and the client thinks you are lifting on a morning you only meant to look.
What you set first
Give it the types and the real durations. Mark permit-not-in days, wind holds, and August. Require what is being lifted, the floor, and the permit before any hours. Turn on the SMS with the street list for that type. 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 piano that was put onto a machine already on a roof, and the hours that were offered without a permit.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
A windy Thursday is not a hole in the book
The wind held the machine. Three hires heard they might still go. None of those hours is yours until a human has seen the forecast you trust.
If the assistant treats “it might be calmer at ten” as a yes, you own three mornings you cannot keep. Flag the wind. Hold the hours until you call them. Do not keep Thursday just to sound fast.
A missing permit is the same shape with a different stamp. Hours in a street that needs a δήμος paper are not hours. Do not let the assistant keep Thursday because the client said the paper is coming.
The book the yard already uses is the only book. A second list on paper in the cab is how a morning gets offered twice.
What these bookings sound like
The order is the lift, then the floor, then the permit, then hours the book can honour, then the refusal said out loud. There is no “we will be there at four” over a machine that is on a piano. There is no “the permit will be fine”. There is no “the wind is alright”.
If the assistant is friendly and still puts this afternoon in, you own that morning. Put the person who rang about the window lift at 11:10 on a request against the book, not on hours the crane does not have.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads the machine book before offering hours | Yes, the book the yard works from | Yes | Usually not — takes a message |
| Books evenings and Saturday mornings | Yes, if you marked them | No | Sometimes |
| Treats a site look as different from priced hours | If you marked the two types | Yes | Rarely sees the week |
| Starts with what is being lifted and the floor | Yes — before it looks at the book | Yes | Often jumps to what morning |
| Books this afternoon while the crane is on another job | Never — the book has to show the machine is free | Only if the machine is free | Sometimes books "a four o'clock" |
| Sends the confirmation and the permit reminder | Automatically, by SMS | If they remember | Sometimes |
What a month of empty crane mornings costs
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- Two machines. About 18 booked mornings a month for a site look, a window lift, or hours already priced.
- An empty crane morning is not given to someone else the same day.
- About 15% of booked mornings arrive with no permit, or the street is blocked. Check your own figure. Yards vary.
- Recoverable value of a used morning, €1,100. Put your own figure in. A site look and a four-hour window lift are not the same.
- A reminder that names the permit and a clear street cuts empty mornings by a third. Challenge this first.
- 18 mornings × 15% = about 3 empty mornings a month.
- 3 × €1,100 = €3,300 of reserved machine time sitting empty.
- A third avoided returns about €1,100 a month.
- Over 10 working months — 10 × €1,100.
Roughly €11,000 a year, from a text that names the permit, not only the hours.
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 hold hours while the crane is on a piano?
It reads the same book the yard works from and checks the machine before offering hours. A morning you have closed because the crane is on a window, or because the permit did not come, is never offered as a hire, if you marked it. Site looks can still be offered that day if someone will be free to walk the street. If the assistant cannot reach the book at that moment, it does not guess. It takes the request as a callback and says so. Hours the yard has no record of are worse than no hours. The crane arrives. Another job is already there.
What about someone moving existing hours?
The assistant asks which job first — site look, window lift, terrace, hours already booked — then the address or the name on the file, and treats the move as one change. Handled as cancel, then book, Thursday is still taken by their own machine, and they are told those hours are not free. A client who has a look and a hire on the same phone must say which line is moving.
Will it book hours if they do not have a street permit?
It will book a site look, if you allow that type, and it will take whether a permit is already in. It will not put the crane in a street that needs a stamp you do not have. A permit is from the municipality. The assistant does not say the δήμος will stamp it by Thursday, and it does not tell them how to file.
Should it keep Thursday because they said the piano is already on the landing?
A piano on the landing is a flag to a phone, not a reason to invent hours the book does not have. The assistant takes the floor and the address. If the machine is free, it can hold the hours. If it is not, it says so. It does not keep Thursday just to sound fast, and it does not pack the piano if you only hire the machine.
Who sends the confirmation?
The assistant, by SMS, in the language of the conversation, at the moment of booking, including the permit reminder and a clear street for that type. The reminder goes out ahead of the hours on the schedule you set. Neither requires anyone in the cab to type a number.
Can clients cancel through it too?
Yes, and you should let them, especially on hours after wind or a refused permit. A cancellation the yard hears about the day before is a morning that can go to someone whose roof is still waiting. The same cancellation arriving as a no-show is a machine gone. Cancellations are written back to the book the same way bookings are.
