Book building visits without mixing tenant and owner
Quick summary
- The assistant reads the diary before it offers a time, so a leak note is never offered as an owner sitting.
- A time to let a plumber in and an hour with an owner are different bookings. Get that wrong and a tenant sits in a slot reserved for the AGM papers.
- Tenant, owner or contractor first. Then the building. Then the diary. A sales question is not a viewing.
- Anything that sounds like a listing, a charges figure, or a plumber's arrival stays a callback.
- If the assistant cannot read the diary, it takes a callback. It does not guess.
- The assistant texts the time, the type, and what to bring, so the papers that arrive are papers you can use.
TL;DR
You are already on the boiler. A caller who wants a time will not wait for a callback just to learn whether Thursday is free. An assistant can book those times if it reads the diary first, treats a contractor handover as different from an owner sitting, and asks tenant, owner or contractor before it places anything. A leak is a note. A sitting is a sitting. A sales question is not a viewing — this is not a listing. If the diary cannot be reached, the assistant does not guess. It takes the request and says so. The assistant texts the time, the type, and what to bring.
Key takeaways
- Give the assistant the types and their real durations before you let it book — contractor handover, owner sitting, AGM papers.
- Mark boiler-hold hours and AGM days in the same diary it reads, including August.
- Test a move on an existing handover and on an owner sitting, separately, before you test a new block.
- Turn on the SMS at the moment of booking, with the paper list for that type.
- If the diary 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 tenant put into an owner sitting.
When someone wants a time and you are on the boiler
One of you is waiting for the boiler man. The other is going through minutes with an owner. The phone rings.
A plumber wants Thursday at eleven to be let into the basement. An owner who just bought two floors wants a sitting today. A tenant wants ten minutes to leave photos of a stain. You cannot pick up. The boiler has not come back.
Those three callers are asking for a time. They are not asking for a listing. They will not wait for a callback just to learn whether Thursday is free. If the assistant can read the diary, it can put the right type in the right hour. If it cannot, it must say so. An owner at a door you did not write down is worse than no visit.
The first question is still tenant, owner or contractor. A leak on the third is not a gap at eleven. A sales question is not a viewing. Only then does the assistant look at the book.
Two kinds of time, and a third that is not a time
Contractor handover. Ten or twenty minutes at the basement. They need the key, or they need a signature. Someone must wait with the cabinet. Mark the duration. Mark which building. If the assistant offers this hour as an owner sitting, an owner arrives expecting an hour and finds a plumber.
Owner sitting. You, the file, an hour. A new block, the charges, the minutes, a works vote. Mark these mornings on the same diary the office already uses. Do not let the assistant drop a sitting into a boiler-hold hour.
AGM papers. A proxy, a copy of the agenda, a signature. Short. Not a sitting. Not a viewing.
Not a visit. “Is the corner flat for sale?”, “can I view it Thursday?”, “how much are the charges if I buy it?”. The assistant does not book those. It takes a name and a number. This is not a listing. A viewing is not an appointment type you offer on this line.
If you only give the assistant one column called “visit”, it will fill the week with the wrong bodies at the wrong doors.
Moves, papers, and a time the diary does not have
A caller who says “move Thursday” has not said which visit. Ask the building first. Ask which type. Cancel, then book. If Thursday is still their own paper drop, say that time is not free. Do not invent a second Thursday because they sounded rushed.
What to bring is not a courtesy. An owner sitting without the minutes is an hour of reconstruction. Put the list in the SMS. A contractor who arrives without the work order is not a completed handover.
If the diary cannot be reached, the only honest sentence is a callback. Guessing a hole is how an owner and a plumber arrive at the same basement.
AGM days belong in the same diary. A sitting at 09:00 on the morning of the meeting is not a hole. Mark it closed, or the assistant will offer it.
What it will not put in the book
It will not book a viewing. It will not book “a chat about the corner flat”. It will not put a whole-block heating failure into a free hour as if a plumber were a slot. It will not offer an owner sitting in a boiler-hold. It will not confirm a time it has not written.
It will not send an SMS that describes a flat, quotes κοινόχρηστα, or names a plumber’s arrival. The confirmation is the type, the time, the building, and what to bring.
If they ask for Saturday because the AGM is Monday, the assistant offers a paper drop if Saturday is in the diary. It does not invent a vote from the greeting.
What you set first
Give it the types and the minutes they actually take. Mark boiler-hold and AGM days, including August. Write the paper list for the SMS. Write the sentence that forbids a listing as a visit type. Test a move on a handover and on a sitting, separately, before you let it touch a new block.
Check the first fifty bookings by hand. That is when you find the hour that was a tenant asking to view a flat, filed as an owner sitting.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
Leak notes are not bookings
Water on the third is a note with the building and the floor. It does not become “the plumber at four” unless a human who can see the diary says so. If the assistant is allowed to turn every leak into a visit, the diary fills with hours nobody can keep, and the real sitting for the Glyfada block is pushed to next week.
Teach it the stop: leak stays a note, plus a flag if the electrics look wet. Visit stays a visit, plus a type. The two meet only when you, looking at the file, decide a human should go.
A tenant who wants to leave stain photos at 07:40 is still a short drop, and 07:40 is not a desk hour unless you marked it. Most offices do not. The assistant offers the next desk hour. It does not tell them the plumber is on the way.
Who must be at the basement
A contractor handover without the person who holds the cabinet is an hour on the pavement. Put the trade and the building in the booking. The SMS repeats it. If they say “the porter will be there”, write that, and flag it. The porter is how you arrive to a locked steel door.
An owner sitting without the person who can vote is an hour of someone else’s opinion. Ask which building and whether they sit on it. If they are a tenant asking for an owner hour, it is not an owner hour. Take the tenant note. Offer nothing that belongs to the AGM.
Do not let the assistant add a second name to the SMS who was not on the call. A spouse at home is not an owner. A neighbour who “might come” is not a vote.
When two visits share one phone
An owner rings to move the paper drop and, in the same breath, wants a sitting about a second building. That is two bookings or one booking and a callback. If the assistant writes both into the same Thursday hour, you will take the papers and miss the file.
Ask which is moving. Book that one. Take the second as a new request, with its own type and its own morning. If they insist it is “the same visit”, say the papers and a new block are not the same visit. Offer two times. Let them choose.
A tenant who wants to leave photos and also wants to view a flat is one short drop and one refusal. Do not create a third type called “photos plus viewing”. There is no such type on this line.
After the SMS goes out
The confirmation is the record. If the type is wrong on the text, the type is wrong at the door. Read the first week’s messages. A paper drop that went out as “owner meeting” is how someone brings a lawyer and a list of questions you did not staff.
Reminders go out on the schedule you set. A reminder that names the building and the papers is useful. A reminder that says “we can also show you the flat” is a listing. Do not allow that sentence in the template.
Cancellations come back into the same diary. A handover cancelled at 18:00 is a basement hour you can give to the next trade. A cancellation that sits in a chat until morning is an hour you already lost.
If they cancel because they wanted a viewing all along, keep the refusal on the file. Do not rebook them as an owner sitting so they will stop asking. A sitting is a sitting. A listing is still not this phone.
The week you actually staff
January after a cold Sunday is not a week of sittings. Mark it. AGM week is a week of papers and sittings. Mark that too. The assistant cannot know the difference unless the diary says so.
A two-person office that tries to book eight sittings in a week you already closed for the boiler will fail in public, at the door, with an owner who took the morning off. Put the closed hours in first. Then let it book what is left.
The value in the worked example is a used hour, not a signed building. A sitting that nobody attends still cost you the file. A text that names the papers is cheaper than that hour. Put your own figure in. An office that lives on ten blocks and an office that lives on two are not the same diary.
Whoever takes the first sitting often keeps the building. That is why a booking that never reached the book is not only an empty hour. It is an owner who is now sitting in someone else’s office.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads the diary before offering a time | Yes, the diary the office works from | Yes | Usually not — takes a message |
| Books evenings and Saturday mornings | Yes, if you marked them | No | Sometimes |
| Treats a contractor handover as different from an owner sitting | If you marked the two types | Yes | Rarely sees the week |
| Starts with tenant, owner or contractor | Yes — before it looks at the diary | Yes | Often jumps to what time |
| Books a viewing of a flat | Never — this is not a listing | The agency does, on another number | Sometimes books "a viewing" |
| Sends the confirmation and what to bring | Automatically, by SMS | If they remember | Sometimes |
What a month of empty owner sittings costs
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- Two people. About 32 booked times a month to let a contractor in, sit with an owner, or collect AGM papers.
- An empty owner hour is not given to someone else the same day.
- About 10% of booked times arrive with the wrong papers, or nobody comes. Check your own figure. Offices vary.
- Recoverable value of a used hour, €90. Put your own figure in. An owner sitting and a ten-minute basement handover are not the same.
- A reminder that names what to bring cuts empty times by a third. Challenge this first.
- 32 times × 10% = about 3 empty times a month.
- 3 × €90 = €270 of reserved time sitting empty.
- A third avoided returns about €90 a month.
- Over 11 working months — 11 × €90.
Roughly €990 a year, from a text that names the papers, 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 an owner sitting while I am on the boiler?
It reads the same diary the office works from and checks the time before offering it. A morning you have closed because you are waiting on the boiler, or because the other person is already in a sitting, is never offered, if you marked it. Times to let a contractor in can still be offered that day if someone will be at the cabinet. If the assistant cannot reach the diary at that moment, it does not guess. It takes the request as a callback and says so. A meeting the office has no record of is worse than no meeting. The owner turns up with the minutes and nobody is free.
What about someone moving an existing time?
The assistant asks tenant, owner or contractor first, then the building, 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. An owner who has a sitting and a paper drop on the same phone must say which visit is moving.
Will it book a time to view the corner flat?
No. This phone is not a sales listing. It will book a sitting to go through a building you manage, or a time to let a contractor in, if you allow those types. It will not book a viewing. If you also run an agency, that is a different number and a different file.
Should it book the AGM against any free hour?
The AGM is not a booking the assistant invents. It repeats a date you marked as speakable for that building. A sitting to collect papers or a proxy is a short visit you mark. It does not move the meeting because an owner is busy. It does not tell a tenant the owners' time.
Who sends the confirmation?
The assistant, by SMS, in the language of the conversation, at the moment of booking, including what to bring for that type. The reminder goes out ahead of the time on the schedule you set. Neither requires anyone at the desk to type a number.
Can clients cancel through it too?
Yes, and you should let them, especially on contractor handovers after a leak. A cancellation the office hears about the day before is a time that can go to someone who still has to get into the basement. The same cancellation arriving as a no-show is an hour gone. Cancellations are written back to the diary the same way bookings are.
