Customer not at home for an intervention: how to prevent a wasted trip, and how to handle one

Customer not at home: where it usually goes wrong

If you look back at the last few times a technician stood in front of a closed door, you will probably recognise one of these situations:

• The appointment was never confirmed. It was made over the phone, and the customer noted a different day.
• The appointment was a long way off. A maintenance visit scheduled weeks in advance has slipped the customer’s mind in the meantime.
• Access had not been arranged. The boiler room is in a shared basement and the key is with the caretaker.
• The wrong person knew about it. The building manager made the appointment, and the occupant was not aware of it.
• The technician ran late. The customer waited until midday and then left.

What that costs appears on no invoice: a trip without work, a gap in the schedule that you rarely fill, and a second visit in a slot that was meant for another customer.

Preventing no-shows: five agreements with your customers

1. Confirm every appointment in writing. Date, time window, address, the work and what the customer needs to arrange, such as an accessible appliance or an open boiler room.
2. Give a time window you can keep. A morning or an afternoon is more honest than a fixed time that the technician misses on a busy day.
3. Send an appointment reminder the day before. With the time window and a phone number to rearrange. A customer who cancels today costs you a phone call instead of a trip.
4. Note the access on the intervention. Who opens the door, where the key is, the gate code, the contact person on site and their mobile number.
5. Have the technician call when they set off. Especially with a wide time window. A quick “I’ll be there in twenty minutes” saves many wasted trips.

For returning customers, such as an apartment building with annual maintenance, it is best to record the access once at the address. Then it is ready for every following visit.

An appointment reminder: an example

A good reminder fits on a mobile phone screen. Adapt the words in brackets.

Subject: Reminder: our technician is coming tomorrow, [date]

Good afternoon [name], tomorrow our technician will come between [time] and [time] for [the work] at [address]. Could you make sure that [the appliance, the boiler room] is accessible? If you will not be there yourself, please let us know who will open the door. If the time no longer suits you, call us today on [phone number] and we will find a new date together. Kind regards, [name]

The reminder repeats when and where, asks one thing about access and makes rearranging easy. If you charge for a wasted trip, say so already in the confirmation.

If the customer is not at home anyway

Even with a good confirmation, it happens. Agree a fixed procedure internally:

Charging for the trip? Only do so if your general terms and conditions or the agreement with the customer provide for it, and say so already in the confirmation. Whether you waive it the first time is a commercial choice. Have the wording of your terms checked by your accountant or legal adviser.

An example: annual maintenance in an apartment building

A technician from a heating company comes in the morning to service a gas boiler in a flat. Nobody answers. He calls the occupant twice without an answer, leaves a note and reports in the app that the customer is absent: “rang the bell, called twice, note through the letterbox”, with the request to reschedule. Then he drives on to his next customer.

At the office, the planner sees on the intervention that the customer was absent. He calls the occupant, who thought the maintenance was the following week. They agree on a new date, and the planner notes that the neighbours on the ground floor have a key. The day before the new visit, the occupant receives a reminder by email.

How it works in Digitalnatie Service Suite

Before the visit

• Appointment reminder: in the automations, the administrator builds a rule from the template for an intervention reminder. The trigger starts a few hours before the appointment, or a few days before at a fixed time, and the action sends a reminder email to the customer. Checks, such as whether the intervention is still scheduled, decide whether it goes out.
• Test first: the test shows on a real intervention which path the rule follows, with the recipient and the text, without sending anything. Once activated, the rule applies to new events; interventions that were already scheduled are processed with a separate action.
• Conditions: your organisation’s email account is connected and sending emails to customers is allowed. You ask Digitalnatie for that setting.
• Access: when you create an intervention, the description is meant for the access, the keys and the contact person. A site gets a contact on site and directions. In the technician app, the technician reads the office’s instructions in their assignment and calls the customer with one tap.
• Time windows and customer portal: in the planning configuration, you set the time windows that a route offers. A customer you have invited sees their upcoming interventions in their portal, with date, time and status.

If the customer is not there

• The technician chooses customer absent from the menu of further actions, must describe what happened and chooses the next step they propose: reschedule or cancel the intervention. That step also works without a connection.
• The report cancels nothing: the intervention stays open, with the status customer absent. If the customer turns up after all, the technician starts again from departure or from the start of work.
• At the office, the absence appears in the intervention’s timeline, and the intervention moves to the ones to be rescheduled. For the new visit, you create a follow-up, an intervention linked to the first one, and put it on the schedule.
• If your terms provide for charging the trip, accounting adds it as a free line to a draft invoice.

Good to know: the reminder goes out by email. WhatsApp Business can be connected and tested, but sending messages is not yet available. When you create an intervention, no email goes to the customer: the confirmation remains your job.

How to plan a week with room for rescheduling is explained in scheduling technicians. Which other follow-up steps a rule can take over is in automating processes.

Frequently asked questions

What does a technician do if the customer is not at home?

They ring the bell, call the customer and then the office, wait an agreed time and leave a note. Then they note what happened and which next step they propose, so that the office can offer the customer a new date the same day.

Can I charge for the trip if the customer is not at home?

Only do so if your general terms and conditions or the agreement with the customer provide for it, and say so already when you confirm the appointment. Have your terms checked by your accountant or legal adviser.

When is the best time to send an appointment reminder?

The day before the visit, at a time when the customer can still respond and your office can be reached. For appointments made long in advance, such as annual maintenance, that reminder matters most.

Can Service Suite send a reminder by text message or WhatsApp?

No. The appointment reminder goes out by email, through an automation and your organisation’s connected email account. WhatsApp Business can be connected and tested, but sending messages is not yet available.

Is the intervention cancelled when the technician reports that the customer is absent?

No. The intervention stays open and moves, at the office, to the ones to be rescheduled. The next step the technician chooses is a proposal to the office. Cancelling is a separate action, with a compulsory reason.