SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Routes & Scheduling

Same-Day Add-Ons: Fitting Extra Requests Into a Solar Cleaning Route

A route is planned the day before, but customers do not always cooperate. A homeowner walks out while the tech is on the ladder and asks about the pigeons under the panels. A neighbor sees the truck and wants a quote. A commercial site calls the office at ten and asks if someone can come today. Same-day requests are good business, as long as they do not wreck the rest of the route.

Tight Routes Make Room for Extras

Grouping stops by neighborhood, as described in Grouping Neighborhoods: Building Tight Solar Cleaning Routes Street by Street, saves drive time. Some of that saved time is the slack that lets you say yes to a same-day add-on without pushing every later stop past its promise.

Two Kinds of Same-Day Requests

Same-day requests come in two shapes, and they need different handling:

• On-site extras. The customer at the current stop wants more than what was booked: bird proofing, critter guards, an inspection, or another array on the garage roof.
• New stops. Someone who is not on today's route wants a cleaning today, usually through the office, the customer app or a neighbor flagging down the truck.

On-Site Extras

Extras asked for on site are the easiest yes, because the crew is already there with the ladders up. The tech notes the request on the job and lets the office know. The office adds the extra as a line item from your service list, such as bird proofing priced per panel or critter guards, so the invoice matches the work and the price is your standard one.

The bigger question is time. Bird proofing a large array is not a five-minute job. If the extra would push the rest of the route too far, the better answer may be “we can do that on a return visit next week.” The office can book it as a separate job, and the panel details on the address can be updated so bird proofing shows on every future visit.

New Stops From the Office

When a new request comes in by phone or through the customer app, the office has two tools. Crew GPS on the office map shows where each truck is right now. The dispatch board shows what each truck still has left today, with the panel details under every remaining stop.

If a truck is nearby and its remaining stops are light, the new job can be added to that truck's day and placed in the route order where it makes sense, often at the end. The tech's phone shows it in the list. If no truck is close or the remaining day is full, the job goes on the next area day for that part of town.

Neighbors Who Flag Down the Truck

A neighbor walking over to ask “how much to do mine?” is one of the best leads in this trade. The tech should not guess at a price on the spot. Get the address and a phone number, and let the office send a proper estimate built from the service list. The customer approves it online, and the approved estimate becomes a scheduled job.

Whether that job happens today depends on the route. Often the best answer is to put it on the next day the truck will be on that street, which keeps the route tight and gives the customer a firm day.

Keeping Later Customers in the Loop

Every add-on pushes later stops back a little. The automatic texts follow the route as it is actually worked: customers who chose a “when they're next” alert get it when the crew is truly heading their way, and the live route map in the customer app shows their current stop number. If an add-on will make the crew noticeably late, a quick note from the office through two-way texting is still a good courtesy.

Knowing When to Say Not Today

Not every same-day request should be squeezed in. A steep 2-story job added at two in the afternoon in summer, after a full route, is the kind of add-on that leads to rushed, unsafe work. Saying “we can be there Thursday morning” is a better answer than doing it badly today.

Open slots on future days are often the right home for same-day requests, as covered in Filling Gaps in the Solar Cleaning Schedule: Pulling Due Jobs Into Open Slots. For the full routing toolkit, visit the SolarCleaningBossPro solar cleaning route software page.