Best way to reduce missed or late appointments?

Pro tip: if you're not using the Location Services feature in the mobile app, turn it on. Not for tracking your techs — for predicting when they'll actually arrive.

We've got it set so dispatch can see real-time location and adjust the "technician is 15 minutes away" text based on actual traffic conditions, not scheduled departure. Caught us up on a lot of the padding problems Ray mentioned because you're not guessing anymore.

Downside: you need your techs to actually keep the app running. We had to make it part of the job — first one to close out gets first pick of tomorrow's route. Incentives work better than policies.

In my experience location tracking just creates more admin work. Techs forget to charge phones, GPS drains battery, suddenly dispatch is calling about why someone's showing at a gas station.

We went simpler — technicians call the customer when they leave the previous job. Not text. Call. Takes 30 seconds, customer feels looked after, and you catch the "actually I'm running late from lunch" problems before they become a complaint.

Old school but it doesn't break when the app updates.

In my experience location tracking just creates more admin work. Techs forget to charge phones, GPS drains battery, suddenly dispatch is calling about why someone's showing at a gas station.

We went simpler — technicians call the customer when they leave the previous job. Not text. Call. Takes 30 seconds, customer feels looked after, and you catch the "actually I'm running late from lunch" problems before they become a complaint.

Old school but it doesn't break when the app updates.

Fair enough — I've seen the battery drain issue, especially on older Android devices. The call approach works if your techs reliably do it. In my experience that's the bigger variable... but if you've got a crew that actually follows through, that's solid.