Book marble visits without mixing stair and plaque
Quick summary
- The assistant reads the book before it offers a morning, so a plaque collection is never offered as a stair look.
- A twenty-minute collection at the yard and an island template are different bookings. Get that wrong and a client sits in a slot reserved for a kitchen.
- Stair, island, plaque or polish first. Then the piece. Then the book.
- Anything that sounds like polish-or-replacement, a price, or a Saturday cut stays a callback.
- If the assistant cannot read the book, it takes a callback. It does not guess.
- The assistant texts the morning, the type, and what to leave clear, so the stair you arrive to is a stair you can stand on.
TL;DR
You are on the saw. 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 plaque as different from a stair, and asks which piece before it places anything. A photo is a look. Polish or replacement is not a booking type — you see the nosing. If the book cannot be reached, the assistant does not guess. It takes the request and says so. The assistant texts the morning, the type, and what to leave clear.
Key takeaways
- Give the assistant the types and their real durations before you let it book — stair look, island template, plaque collection, polish, fit.
- Mark name-day Fridays, slab-not-ready days and August in the same book it reads.
- Test a move on an existing plaque collection and on a stair look, separately, before you test a new island.
- Turn on the SMS at the moment of booking, with the list of what to leave clear 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 stair put into a plaque collection.
When someone wants a morning and you are on the saw
One of you is cutting Dionysos. The other is laying paper on an island. The phone rings.
A manager wants Thursday morning for a stair look. A person who needs a plaque for Saturday wants the yard today. A client wants an hour to template a kitchen. You cannot pick up. The slab is on the blade.
Those three callers are asking for a morning. They are not asking for the same morning.
The first one needs you on a landing with a tape. The second needs a short collection at the yard, and only if you letter. The third needs you, brown paper, and cabinets that are actually in. If the assistant treats them as the next free hour, Thursday morning fills with a plaque name, the stair arrives while you are at the gate, and the island is offered on a morning the old worktop is still in.
The assistant books only if three things are true. The type is one you offer. The morning is free in the book the yard works from. Nothing in the call is a price, a polish-or-replacement, or a Saturday cut you have not seen. 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 morning has to be finished on this call. It is also why a guessed confirmation is worse than no confirmation. The client empties the stair. Nobody is free.
A plaque collection is not a stair look
You already know this. The assistant does not, until you teach it.
A plaque collection is twenty minutes at the yard. Someone is there to take a name and a date. You stay on the saw. The caller is told who should come and what to bring.
A stair look is you, a landing, remaining thickness. You have come off the saw. The flight is free of pots. You stand on the nosing.
An island template is a kitchen, paper, a sink cut. A polish is a grind you have already decided is possible. A fit is a piece that has already been cut.
If the assistant cannot tell these apart, you spend Thursday on people who only needed a name cut, and the person who needed an hour on a landing is given twenty minutes at the gate.
Give it the types and the real durations before it is allowed to offer anything:
- Stair look
- Island template or yard visit to pick a slab
- Plaque collection
- Polish after you have decided
- Fit after a quote
- Anything you do not want booked at all
People who just had a fitter in often call after the cabinets are standing. The assistant can offer a template tomorrow. It cannot offer a fit today if the slab is still in the ground. Do not give a plaque collection to that caller, and do not give a stair a twenty-minute gate visit when they asked for a look at the nosing.
Which piece, then the job, then any morning
The first question on this line is not when they are free. The first question is stair, island, plaque or polish.
Those are different jobs. Different places. Usually different lengths of visit. A worn entrance stair is not a cemetery plaque. A fit is not a first look. The confirmation, the reminder, and what to leave clear are different.
A caller who is both still gets two notes. If they want a stair looked at and also a plaque cut, they get a look and a yard job. Do not squeeze a nosing and a name 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 plaque or the stair. Both can share one mobile number. If the assistant picks the first match, it moves the wrong visit.
Ask which piece. Then the address or the name on the file. Then find the existing morning. Then move it.
Two clients in the same block are common. Two stairs after a manager week are common. A surname plus “the stair” is not always enough. Take the flight. Take the building. Do not invent a match because the first three letters agree.
If they will not say which visit, 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.
Mornings you have already closed
You already know which mornings you stand on stairs and which mornings the book is closed because the slab is still in the ground, or because you are in a kitchen that cannot be left. Put those mornings in the book the assistant reads. If they exist only on a pad next to the saw, the assistant cannot see them.
On a closed morning you still take the phone, or the assistant does. A fit is not offered. A plaque collection can still be offered if someone will be at the yard.
If a closed morning is missing from that book, the assistant will offer 09:00 on a day both of you are already on stone. The client arrives with the stair empty. The island and the new look are then the same morning.
Fit days are for work you have already quoted and agreed.
August needs its own dates. Some of you close for two weeks. The published number still rings. Set the closure dates. Do not let the assistant book a template into a week when nobody is at the yard.
If you do not letter plaques this month, say so before a collection is offered. A yard that does not do stairs should say so on the first call, not after a booked look.
Moving a morning that already exists
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 visit. The assistant tells them that morning is not free.
The order is: which piece, address or name on the file, find the existing morning, release it, place the new one. One change. Reversed, or split into two independent operations, the client is blocked by their own hour.
Let them cancel as well, especially on templates after a fitter has delayed. A cancellation the day before is a morning you can give to someone whose stair is still waiting. The same cancellation arriving as a no-show is a morning gone. Write cancellations back to the book the same way bookings are written.
A same-day move before a name-day is tighter. If Friday is already a list of plaques and they want to move an island onto Friday, refuse the island and offer a later window, or take a callback. Do not squeeze them into the hour before you go back on the saw.
Polish or replacement is not a booking type
People ask while they book. A manager moving a stair look will ask whether polish will do. A person booking an island will ask for a round figure. A client booking a plaque will ask whether Saturday is enough.
None of those is a booking type.
The assistant says someone has to see the stair. Then it finishes the morning, if there is a type you actually offer. It does not invent a “polish chat”. It does not name a price to win the booking. It does not say polish will do. It does not pretend Saturday is ready.
If they press — “just say polish, I have the building on the other line” — the assistant still refuses the choice. It can offer a look if that morning is free. Polish or replacement stays yours, after the nosing.
Someone fell on the stair 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 the stair is safe.
What to leave clear, in the same text as the morning
A stair look on a flight still full of plant pots is not a look. An island template with the old worktop still in is not a template. A plaque collection with the wrong name is a visit you cannot finish.
The assistant texts the morning, the type, and what to leave clear — pots off the stair, old worktop out, who comes to the yard with the name. That text is the difference between a morning you can use and a morning you drive to and leave.
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 fit list for a look. The island does not need to be out for a template. It needs to be out for a fit. Mix those lists and the client thinks you are setting stone on a morning you only meant to paper.
What you set first
Give it the types and the real durations. Mark name-day Fridays, slab-not-ready days, and August. Require which piece before any morning. Turn on the SMS with the clear 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 stair that was put into a plaque collection, and the fit that was offered before the template.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
A name-day Friday is not a hole in the book
Saturday has a date on it. Three families heard you might cut. None of those plaques is yours until you have seen the name and the saw can take it.
If the assistant treats “the funeral is Saturday” as a finish, you own three cuts you cannot keep. Book a collection or a flag. Hold the cut until a human has seen the saw. If you do not letter, say so on the first call. Do not keep Saturday just to sound fast.
A fitter’s Thursday is the same shape with different cabinets. Island templates need the old worktop out, or a note that you will measure around it. Do not let the assistant keep Thursday because the fitter named it.
The book the yard already uses is the only book. A second list on paper next to the saw is how a morning gets offered twice.
What these bookings sound like
The order is the piece, then a morning the book can honour, then the refusal said out loud. There is no round figure over an island nobody has templated. There is no “polish will do”. There is no Saturday cut because a funeral named the day.
If the assistant is friendly and still picks polish, you own that sentence. Put the person who rang about the stair at 11:10 on a look, not on a finish the nosing cannot take.
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 yard works from | Yes | Usually not — takes a message |
| Books evenings and Saturday mornings | Yes, if you marked them | No | Sometimes |
| Treats a plaque as different from a stair look | If you marked the two types | Yes | Rarely sees the week |
| Starts with which piece | Yes — before it looks at the book | Yes | Often jumps to what morning |
| Books polish versus replacement | Never — that is after the look | After they have been on the step | Sometimes books "a polish chat" |
| Sends the confirmation and what to leave clear | Automatically, by SMS | If they remember | Sometimes |
What a month of empty island templates costs
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- Two people. About 24 booked mornings a month to look at a stair, template an island, or collect a plaque.
- An empty template morning is not given to someone else the same day.
- About 12% of booked mornings arrive with the old worktop still in, or nobody is in. Check your own figure. Yards vary.
- Recoverable value of a used morning, €220. Put your own figure in. An island template and a twenty-minute plaque collection are not the same.
- A reminder that names what to leave clear cuts empty mornings by a third. Challenge this first.
- 24 mornings × 12% = about 3 empty mornings a month.
- 3 × €220 = €660 of reserved time sitting empty.
- A third avoided returns about €220 a month.
- Over 10 working months — 10 × €220.
Roughly €2,200 a year, from a text that names the piece, not only the morning.
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 stair look while I am on the saw?
It reads the same book the yard works from and checks the morning before offering it. A morning you have closed because you are templating an island, or because a slab is still in the ground, is never offered as a fit, if you marked it. Plaque collections can still be offered that day if someone will be at the yard. 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 visit the yard has no record of is worse than no visit. The client turns up at the stair and nobody is free.
What about someone moving an existing morning?
The assistant asks which job first — stair, island, plaque, polish or fit — 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 visit, and they are told that morning is not free. A client who has a plaque collection and a stair look on the same phone must say which visit is moving.
Will it book a morning to decide polish or replacement?
It will book a look so you can see the stair, if you allow that type. It will not book a session in which the assistant itself picks polish or replacement. Remaining thickness is yours, after you have been on that step. A person, not the voice on the phone.
Should it book a Saturday cut because the funeral is Saturday?
A plaque with a date on it is a flagged note or a collection at the yard, not a guessed finish. Mark plaque collections as their own type. The assistant takes the cemetery and the day. It does not invent “ready Saturday”. If you do not letter plaques, it says so on the first call, from the line you typed in.
Who sends the confirmation?
The assistant, by SMS, in the language of the conversation, at the moment of booking, including what to leave clear for that type — the stair free of pots, the old worktop out, or who will be at the yard with the name. The reminder goes out ahead of the morning on the schedule you set. Neither requires anyone at the saw to type a number.
Can clients cancel through it too?
Yes, and you should let them, especially on templates after a fitter has delayed. A cancellation the yard hears about the day before is a morning that can go to someone whose stair is still waiting. The same cancellation arriving as a no-show is a morning gone. Cancellations are written back to the book the same way bookings are.
