SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Routes & Scheduling

Fitting First-Time Solar Cleaning Customers Into an Existing Route

A first-time customer is a different kind of stop. The panels may never have been cleaned. The access notes are new and untested. The customer is forming an opinion of your company with every minute the crew is in their yard. Fitting first visits into routes that are already full of regulars takes a little more care than adding a repeat customer.

New Customers Fill Gaps, Too

Ground mounts and carports make good fillers, as covered in Ground Mounts and Carports on the Solar Cleaning Route: Easy Stops That Round Out a Day. New customers can fill gaps as well, especially when they live near your existing routes. The trick is to give them enough room that the first visit goes well.

How New Customers Arrive

New customers come in a few ways, and all of them end up on the same Waiting List:

• An estimate built from your service list, approved by the customer online. The approved estimate becomes the scheduled job.
• The website request form or sign-up form, which flows into Form Responses. One click converts a sign-up into a client, with the card captured on the sign-up.
• A request through the customer app from someone a current customer referred.
• A phone call the office enters as a one-time job.

Because they all land in one place, no new customer is sitting in a voicemail or an email inbox waiting to be noticed.

Get the Panel Details Right Up Front

The first visit is only as smooth as the information behind it. When the job is set up, fill in the panel details carefully: number of panels, mount, roof stories, pitch, extras like bird proofing or critter guards, and access notes such as the spigot location, which side has roof access, the gate code and any dog.

Satellite views and photos from the customer help at quote time, but they are not perfect. Ask the tech to check the details on the first visit and note anything that is different. The office updates the job, and every visit after shows the right information.

Give First Visits More Time

A roof that has never been cleaned, or not for years, is usually dirtier than one on a twice-a-year plan. There may be bird mess, heavy grime or debris under the panels. The tech is also finding their way around a new property. First visits take longer, so give them more room in the day.

When building the route, place first visits early in the day where possible, and avoid packing them between tight regular stops. More on judging time in Estimating Job Time for Solar Panel Cleaning So the Schedule Holds.

Put Them on an Existing Route

The best home for a first visit is a day the truck is already in that neighborhood. Look at the Waiting List map, find the new customer's pin, and see which upcoming route goes nearby. Assign the job to that truck and day and set its place in the order. A new customer three streets from a group of regulars costs very little extra drive time.

If a new customer is far from any route, it may be worth waiting a few days for a route to go that way, as long as you tell the customer when to expect you. A short text from the office with the day, followed by the night-before reminder, is usually all a new customer needs to feel looked after.

Make the First Impression Count

First-time customers often do not know what to expect. The night-before reminder, if they chose it, tells them the crew is coming. On the day, on-the-way and arrived texts and the live route map in the customer app show them where the crew is. Before-and-after photos taken in the tech app show the difference, and customers can compare their own production app before and after the cleaning if they like.

When the tech taps Complete, the invoice is created and a card on file can be charged, and the customer can see the invoice in the customer app.

Turn a First Visit Into a Plan

The best time to offer a recurring plan is right after a good first cleaning. A customer moved onto a twice-a-year or yearly plan will come due on their own from then on, and becomes one more pin on the map in a neighborhood you already work. For the full routing toolkit, visit the SolarCleaningBossPro solar cleaning route software page.