Lockouts, dead garage springs, warm freezers — Workiz country runs on urgency. Schedules, routes, stock, invoices: handled. The customer side isn't: 85%+ of high-intent enquiries arrive on WhatsApp while techs drive vans, climb ladders, or fix equipment. Fifteen unanswered minutes and the frantic customer messages the next local firm. Link Workiz to WhatsApp through Susan and triage runs in chat: photos in, availability checked, deposits banked, job cards raised — automatically, around the clock, thumbs never leaving tools.
⚡ Key Takeaways
- Every message greeted in seconds with triage attached — contacts, postcodes, fault detail, day and night. Bookings become scheduled Workiz jobs with techs assigned, no retyping. Lock photos, model plates, and damage shots pin themselves to the job card. Callout fees clear before vans roll — Apple Pay to card, in chat. And techs update jobs by voice note from site, transcribed straight into Workiz notes and invoices.
Emergency trades punish slowness four ways. The three-minute rule: locksmiths, door techs, emergency plumbers — first firm with availability and a price wins four times out of five, and unread-while-working means lost revenue directly. Vague openers: "washer won't spin, when?" costs ten to twenty minutes establishing brand, model, codes, access. Double-handling: names, numbers, addresses retyped into Workiz at ten to fifteen minutes a card — twenty-five enquiries a day burns thirty-plus hours a week. And ghost dispatches: emergency runs with no fee banked, cancelled on arrival, fuel and mornings gone.
So the number becomes an autonomous desk and dispatcher wired to Workiz. The shape of it: message arrives, Susan triages conversationally — "FastLock here — lockout, replacement, or upgrade? Postcode and a line on the lock, please." Postcode given (NW3), Yale nightlatch snapped key described — lock photo requested, zone availability checked, fixed callout rate stated, slots offered. Deposit link sent; paid; Workiz job raised and set Dispatched — photo, address, nearest mobile tech assigned — arrival confirmation back in chat. Zero touches from the office.
Five minutes, no code:
Mobile admin versus middleware versus chat-run: replies took half an hour to three hours between jobs, or five to fifteen minutes via static alerts — now seconds, always. Photos meant downloading and re-uploading, or clunky external forms — now requested and attached automatically. Job creation meant ten-plus minutes typing each, or webhook text-dumps — now full two-way sync. Deposits meant transfers and chasing, or browser links — now one tap in chat. Triage meant voicemail, or rigid auto-replies — now intelligent dispatch in conversation. Site updates meant app-typing, or nothing — now voice notes transcribed to the job. Reviews meant SMS begging, or bulk email — now WhatsApp chasers post-payment. Monthly money ran free-but-bleeding, or pricey fragile stacks — now a fraction, multiples returned.
Past capture, field machinery runs itself. Data-badge photos requested, fault area snapped, tech arrives with the right parts first time. Estimates chased gently ("questions on the garage-door quote, Mark?") with answers and digital approval in chat. Techs dictate from the road — "Job 5201: torsion spring and cables, ninety minutes, £95 parts, complete" — parsed, logged, invoiced. And the books stay joined: Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent — plus Housecall Pro, Jobber, ServiceM8, Tradify, Commusoft, Simpro, Fergus.
Related: Housecall Pro, Jobber, ServiceM8, Tradify, Fergus, emergency intake, Stripe links — repair shops, plumbers, electricians, cleaners.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Workiz doesn't do conversational WhatsApp — correct?
Correct natively — basic SMS plus third parties. Susan adds the AI desk: triage, photos, live availability, job cards raised, all in chat, 24/7.
Photos and serials — where do they land?
Requested in chat, uploaded onto the Workiz record. Techs open the job and see the fault before leaving the yard.
Nights, lockouts, floods?
Urgent wording triggers triage instantly: location and severity qualified, emergency fee stated, on-call tech alerted — all in the same minutes.
Deposits before dispatch?
Stripe links in chat, verified before the job locks. Unpaid travel stops here.