PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Porta Potty Rental Software

The Customer App: What Your Renters Can See and Do

Most of the calls that interrupt a portable toilet office are some version of the same few questions. When are you coming? Can you add a pump-out? What do I owe? Can I update my card? The driver's side was covered in What Porta Potty Rental Software Puts on the Driver's Phone. This article is about the other side: the app your customers use.

What the Customer App Is

PortaPottyBossPro includes a customer app for your customers: the contractors, event planners, property managers and homeowners who rent from you. It's where they see what's going on with their service and handle the routine things without calling. It's part of the platform, not a separate product.

Today's Route on a Live Map

On their service day, customers can see today's route on a live map, with a line like "You're stop 12 of 20 — the crew is 5 stops away." For a site superintendent who needs to open a gate, or an event planner waiting on units before guests arrive, that's exactly the answer they'd otherwise call to get. Because the line is about their place in the route, it stays accurate as the crew moves through the day.

The map is privacy-minded too. Customers see their own place on the route and where the crew is, not the names or addresses of the other stops. A contractor watching for the truck doesn't learn anything about your other customers.

Alerts Each Customer Chooses

Customers choose their own alert preferences:

• The night before their service.
• When they're next on the route.
• When the tech arrives.

These go out automatically, by text and email, based on what the driver is doing and what the customer picked. Some customers want all three; some want none. Letting them choose keeps the texts useful instead of annoying.

Requesting Service

Customers can request service from the app. A contractor who needs an extra pump-out before an inspection, or a homeowner who wants their party unit picked up early, sends the request and it reaches your office to schedule. That means fewer messages lost in voicemail and fewer details missed in a hurried phone call.

Signing Up for Services and Pricing

The customer app also lets customers sign up for services and see your pricing. A customer who has rented from you once for an event can sign up for something new without starting from scratch with the office. Combined with the sign-up form on your website, where a card can be captured and the sign-up converts to a client in one click, this is how a lot of new work arrives without a phone call. More on intake in Quotes, Request Forms and Online Sign-Ups for Portable Toilet Rentals.

Invoices, Payments and Card on File

Customers can see their invoices in the app and pay them online. They can also update their card on file, which matters more than it sounds: an expired card is one of the most common reasons an auto-charge fails. When the customer can fix it themselves, you don't spend a morning chasing them.

For monthly accounts, the statement covers every job at every site, each line labeled with the site address, so a contractor with several projects sees everything in one place.

Rating and Referring

After service, customers can rate you and refer others. Referrals are how a lot of portable toilet companies grow, from one contractor telling another or one wedding planner telling the next. Making it easy for a happy customer to pass your name along is worth having in the app.

Ratings are useful for the office too. A low rating after a service is a signal to call that customer before the problem becomes a lost account. A string of good ratings tells you a driver is doing the job the way you want it done.

What It Means for the Office

Each feature in the customer app takes a call off the office's plate. Where's the truck, add a service, what do I owe, my card changed, send me the invoice again. Fewer interruptions means the office spends its time on dispatch and new business instead of answering the same questions all day.

Introducing It to Customers

Customers don't discover the app on their own. Mention it when you deliver, put it in your first invoice email, and point repeat callers to it: "You can see where the truck is in the app." Contractors and property managers usually take to it fastest because they deal with several sites.

Part of the Bigger Picture

The customer app is one piece of a system where the office, the drivers and the customers all see the same job. For how it connects to dispatch, texting and billing, see the porta potty rental software overview.