So basically I got into this thing with our dispatch team because I feel like we're sending customers way too much info that they don't actually read or care about, right? Like we send these long automated updates with technician name, estimated arrival, job status, parts ordered, blah blah blah. And I was talking to this homeowner last week who was like "I just want to know when you're showing up" which made me think... what if we're overcomplicating this?
So I guess my question is like, from the field side but also dispatch/ops side — what do your customers actually open? What do they respond to? Because I feel like we're writing novels when maybe a text with "on our way, 20 min out" is all anyone wants. But then I'm not the one who gets the angry calls if we don't tell them enough, so... idk. Curious how other teams balance this.
Connor, this is a **great** question and honestly one we wrestled with for months before landing on something that actually works.
What we found: **customers care about two things** — certainty and control. Everything else is noise.
Here's what we actually send now:
- **Booking confirmation** — date, approximate window, what to expect
- **Day-of "en route"** — technician name + photo, live ETA, direct contact number
- **Job complete** — what was done, next steps if any, invoice link
We **removed** the in-progress updates, the "technician dispatched" messages, the parts delay notifications (unless it's multi-day). Our open rates on the "en route" text went from 34% to 78% when we stripped out the extra stuff.
Pro tip: A/B test your message length. We ran two versions for a month and the shorter one won decisively on both opens and CSAT scores. Let me know if you want our message templates — happy to share what we landed on.
oh wow 78% is way higher than ours, we're probably sitting at like 40% on a good day. the photo thing is interesting too — we don't do that but i can see how it builds trust before you even ring the doorbell. thanks for the offer on templates, that would actually be super helpful if you don't mind sharing?
honestly from my seat the problem is we send updates nobody asked for and then they reply "stop" to everything and miss the important ones
can we just not
like if they book online they get confirmation, fine. but the 3am automated "your job is scheduled" text when they scheduled it themselves yesterday? drives me nuts
they want: when are you coming, are you late, how much
thats it
Teresa I feel you on this!! We actually had customers calling us *angry* about too many texts — like "why are you texting me six times about one appointment" — so we pulled way back and guess what, our NPS actually went up?
Now we only send:
1. Confirmation (if booked by phone, not if they did it online like you said)
2. Day-before reminder with option to reschedule
3. En route with live tracking link
4. Complete with invoice
And we make the complete one optional — they can opt out if they just want the paper invoice. Really appreciate you bringing this up Connor because I think a lot of us are over-notification-ing our customers thinking more communication = better service when it's really not!!
in my experience the customers who want updates are the ones who aren't home and want to know when to head back. everyone else just wants you to show up in the window you said.
we started putting a note in the booking: "text updates available — reply YES to subscribe"
take rate is like 15%. tells you everything.
Art, that's an interesting approach — another way to think about it is that you're letting customers self-select into the communication style that suits them. We've seen similar results with preference centers, though I'll note that in some markets we've found the opt-in rate skews toward younger homeowners and commercial clients, while older residential customers often prefer a phone call or no contact at all.
From a broader operational perspective, I'd suggest tracking not just open rates but callback volume tied to notification timing. We found that a significant portion of our "where are you" calls were coming 15-20 minutes after the "en route" notification, which told us our ETA buffer was too optimistic. Fixing the ETA reduced calls more than changing the message content did.
Connor, you might also consider whether the channel matters as much as the content — some of our customer segments engage far more consistently with email than SMS, which surprised us initially.
We've been testing a middle ground that seems to be working well for our team. The key insight from our customer surveys was that **uncertainty** drives anxiety, not lack of information. So we focus on setting clear expectations upfront rather than frequent updates.
Our current approach:
- **At booking**: clear window (not "8am-5pm" — we learned that's useless), what the tech will need access to, how long the job typically takes
- **Night before**: only if window is >4 hours, we narrow it
- **Day of**: single "on the way" with realistic ETA
- **After**: summary and invoice
The team also started adding a personal note in the "on the way" text — just something like "Hi, it's Marcus from [Company], heading your way now" — and our customers specifically mention it in reviews. Small thing, big impact.
Has anyone tried letting customers choose their preferred communication style during booking? We're considering adding that as a preference field.
Paula, I love seeing this conversation unfold — it's such a great example of how customer communication preferences can vary so widely across different teams and customer bases!
We want to make sure you're all set up for success here, so I wanted to flag a couple of resources that might help as you're thinking about notification strategy:
- Our tips for rolling out to larger field teams include a section on customer communication preferences
- The customer notification settings in FieldPulse let you customize which events trigger messages — worth a review if you haven't looked recently
If anyone wants to share what they've landed on as a final setup, we would absolutely love to hear it. These real-world insights help us think about how we can make the platform more flexible for different communication styles. Feel free to drop your approaches here or reach out directly if you want to dig into configuration options!
