Book locksmith visits without mixing a night lockout
Quick summary
- The assistant reads the book before it offers a time, so a night lockout is never offered as a key-cutting hour.
- A twenty-minute extra-key visit and a cylinder change are different bookings. Get that wrong and a door sits in a bench hour.
- Someone inside, empty flat, or a booked visit first. Then the address. Then the book. ID is always announced.
- A child or dog inside is not a booking. That call goes to a phone you hold.
- If the assistant cannot read the book, it takes a callback. It does not guess Thursday.
- The assistant texts the time, the type, and that photo ID is required at the door.
TL;DR
You are at a door. A caller who wants a cylinder changed will not wait for a callback just to learn whether Thursday is free. An assistant can book those hours if it reads the book first, treats extra keys as different from a cylinder, and asks who is behind the door before it places anything. A lockout is a note. A cylinder is a visit. Opening advice is not a visit type. If the book cannot be reached, the assistant does not guess. It takes the request and says so. Every confirmation names ID at the door.
Key takeaways
- Give the assistant the types and their real durations before you let it book — extra keys, cylinder, shutter, common door with the manager.
- Mark night lockout hours as closed to bench work in the same book it reads, including August.
- Test a move on existing extra keys and on a cylinder, separately, before you test a new common door.
- Turn on the SMS at the moment of booking, always with the ID line.
- 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 lockout put into a bench slot.
When someone wants a time and you are at a door
Both hands are on this door. The phone rings.
An owner wants Thursday at eleven for a cylinder. A shop wants twenty minutes for extra keys. A building manager wants the common door changed. You cannot pick up. This landing is not finished.
A caller who only needed to know whether Thursday is free will not wait for you to step away. They ring the next locksmith on the list. An assistant can give them a time that is actually in the book, if the types are marked and if a night lockout is not allowed to land in a bench hour.
Three visits that are not the same hour
Extra keys. Short. Bench or a known lock they bring. The assistant offers the duration you marked. It does not turn this into a cylinder conversation because they also asked about the door.
Cylinder. The door, the owner, photo ID. An hour if that is what you marked. The assistant does not quote from a photo. It does not describe how the old one comes out.
Common door. Building manager named, or the visit does not go in. Different access. Do not let a resident book a common-door hour the manager has not agreed.
A lockout is not a fourth visit type. It is a note and a ring to you. Opening advice is not a fifth. It is a refusal.
If those five land in one column called “locks”, Thursday fills with people who needed twenty minutes while the door that needed an hour is given a bench slot at the kerb.
What must be in the book before it offers a time
The hours you actually run, including nights if you take them. The hours you do not. Mornings you have closed because you were out until four. August. The visit types with real durations.
A time the van has already given to a cylinder cannot be offered to extra keys. The assistant has to read the same book you work from, not last week’s pad on the dash.
If the book cannot be reached, the assistant does not invent Thursday. It takes the request, says the locksmith will confirm, and flags you. A person who arrives for a cylinder that was never written down is worse than a callback.
ID the SMS has to name
A cylinder visit that arrives with no photo ID is an empty hour, or a visit you will not start. Extra keys for a door they cannot prove is theirs is the same problem. A common door without the manager is a van on the pavement.
The confirmation has to name the type and the ID line. Photo ID at the door. Manager on site for the common door. For extra keys, the lock or the door they are for.
The SMS goes in the language of the call. A German tenant who booked in German and gets a Greek text will miss the ID instruction.
Do not put a price in the confirmation. Do not put a method in the confirmation. The text is the time, the type, and ID.
Moves, cancellations, and “while I have you”
“Move Thursday” is not enough. Thursday may hold extra keys and a cylinder. The assistant asks which job, then the address, then looks at the book. Cancel, then book.
“While I have you, can I take the old one out myself?” is a method question. The assistant does not answer it. It keeps the move, and it marks the question as refused.
“While I have you, I am locked out now” is no longer a move. That is a lockout. The assistant stops the diary work, asks who is behind the door, and puts the call on your phone. It does not keep chatting about Monday’s cylinder while they are on the landing.
Cancellations the day before free an hour. No-shows do not. Let them cancel through the assistant. Write it back into the same book.
What it will not book
A night lockout as a Thursday hour. A child or dog inside. Any session that would be “talk me through opening it”. Those are phones, or a refusal, not hours.
A cylinder price from a photo. A common door without the manager named. A visit into a week you marked closed. Extra keys into a morning you marked closed after a night out.
If they insist — “just put me down, I’ll wait at the door” — the assistant still checks the book. If the hour is not free, it is not offered.
How CITT handles the book
It reads the calendar the van already uses. It offers only hours that are free for that visit type. It writes the job in at the moment of booking. It texts the time, the type, and the ID line. It can remind them the day before.
It asks who is behind the door before it looks at a time, if the call sounds like a lockout. It never books a method. If the calendar is unreachable, it takes a callback.
You see the transcript, the type, the address, and whether they asked a question the assistant refused.
What you mark first
Visit types and durations. Night hours closed to bench work. August. Who can approve a common door. The sentence that forbids opening advice and a price from a photo. The same-day phone list: child inside, dog inside, night lockout.
Then test. Move existing extra keys. Move an existing cylinder. Book a new common door. Read the first fifty by hand. That is where a landing has been sitting in a bench hour.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
The hour that looks free and is not
A hole between two night jobs on the map is not a cylinder. Travel across Athens at eleven is not twenty minutes. If you do not mark travel, the assistant will offer Pangrati at 11:00 to a van that is still in Ampelokipoi at 10:40.
Mark areas if you work that way. If you do not, at least mark durations long enough that a cylinder cannot land in a key-cutting gap.
The building manager who wants “any time Thursday” has not given you access. The assistant still needs a window the manager will actually stand at. A common door booked against an empty hall is an empty hour with a bag on the step.
What the client hears when the type is wrong
They come for a cylinder. You have twenty minutes. You see a door that needs a longer visit, and you have to leave for extra keys at the bench. They decide you do not do doors. They ring the next van.
That is why the split exists on this phone before the book opens. Lockout or booked visit. Then the address. Then an hour that matches the work. ID on every confirmation.
A confirmation that says only “Thursday 14:00, locksmith” is how that mix starts. Name the type in the SMS. Name ID. Name the manager if the common door is the job.
If they booked extra keys and they also want a cylinder, that is two visits or one longer visit you have marked as combined. The assistant does not squeeze a door into a bench hour because they asked at the end of the call.
After the visit is in the book
The van still has to do the work. The assistant does not replace the cylinder visit. It replaces the twenty minutes you would have spent ringing back to say Thursday is free.
When you close a morning after a night out, the book has to show it. Otherwise the assistant will fill it with cylinders while you are still asleep, and the cylinders will wait at doors with no one coming.
When a lockout comes in on a day that already has a cylinder, the cylinder stays until you move it. The assistant does not cancel Thursday’s door because someone in Pangrati described keys inside. It puts the lockout on your phone. You decide which job moves.
That split — lockout on a phone, visit in a book — is the whole point of the types. Mix them and you own both the missed cylinder and the opening sentence you never wanted said.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads the book before offering a time | Yes, the book the van works from | Yes | Usually not — takes a message |
| Books evenings if you take them | Yes, if you marked them | No | Sometimes |
| Treats extra keys as different from a cylinder | If you marked the two types | Yes | Rarely sees the week |
| Starts with who is behind the door | Yes — before it looks at the book | Yes | Often jumps to what time |
| Books opening advice as a visit | Never — no method, lockout rings you | You decide after you hear the door | Sometimes books "a look" |
| Sends the confirmation and the ID line | Automatically, by SMS | If they remember | Sometimes |
What a month of empty cylinder visits costs
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- One van. About 28 booked times a month for extra keys, cylinders, or shutters.
- An empty cylinder hour is not given to a lockout the same morning.
- About 10% of booked times arrive without ID, or nobody comes. Check your own figure. Vans vary.
- Recoverable value of a used hour, €95. Put your own figure in. A cylinder and twenty minutes of extra keys are not the same.
- A reminder that names ID cuts empty times by a third. Challenge this first.
- 28 times × 10% = about 3 empty times a month.
- 3 × €95 = €285 of reserved time sitting empty.
- A third avoided returns about €95 a month.
- Over 11 working months — 11 × €95.
Roughly €1,045 a year, from a text that names photo ID, not only the time.
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 a cylinder while I am at a night lockout?
It reads the same book the van works from and checks the hour before offering it. A morning you have closed because you were out until four is never offered as a cylinder, if you marked it. Extra keys can still be offered that day if you will be at the bench. 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 cylinder the van has no record of is worse than no visit. The client turns up at the door and the job was never written down.
What about someone moving an existing time?
The assistant asks cylinder, extra keys or common door first, then the address or the name on the job, 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 time is not free. A client who has extra keys and a cylinder on the same phone must say which visit is moving.
Will it book a time to talk them through opening the door?
No. Opening advice is not a visit type. A lockout is a note and a ring to you. The assistant will book extra keys or a cylinder if you allow those types. It will not book a session in which it describes a method. The locksmith looks at the door — a person, not the voice on the phone. ID at the door.
Should it book a common door against any free hour?
A common door needs the manager named and a duration you mark. It is not a hole between two lockouts. The assistant offers only the kind of visit you marked. It does not promise a price from a photo of the intercom.
Who sends the confirmation?
The assistant, by SMS, in the language of the conversation, at the moment of booking, always with the ID line, and with the manager named if the job is a common door. The reminder goes out ahead of the time on the schedule you set.
Can clients cancel through it too?
Yes, and you should let them, especially on cylinders when the owner moved. A cancellation the van hears about the day before is an hour that can go to extra keys. The same cancellation arriving as a no-show is an hour gone. Cancellations are written back to the book the same way bookings are.
