The problem
When rain sets in, a mobile valeter has to ring every customer on the day's list, leave voicemails and wait for call-backs. With 5 jobs a day and about 4 wet days a month, that's 20 calls at about 6 minutes each: 2 hours a month on the phone, and customers who hear too late to rearrange their day.
What the AI does
Firetext sends texts from a web account, with merge tags for each customer's name and booking time, editable templates and scheduled sends. Keep a ready-made rain template with two new dates to choose from. On a wet morning, add the day's customers, check the text and send it in one go. A UK reply number ($12£9€11A$17C$17 a month) brings replies into Firetext and can forward them to your email or mobile, so rebooking happens by text.
A worked example
A mobile valeter in Manchester does about 5 jobs a day and loses about 4 days a month to rain. They keep a rain template in Firetext with the next two free dates and send it to the day's customers by 7am.
Before
20 rain-day calls a month at about 6 minutes each: 2 hours, plus call-backs, and about 1 job a month lost to a customer who booked elsewhere
After
About 5 minutes per wet day to send the texts and sort replies: 20 minutes a month
What it's worth
About $120£90€107A$173C$169 a month: 1.7 hours of calls saved, about $56£42€50A$81C$79 at an assumed $33£25€30A$48C$47 an hour, plus 1 rescheduled job a month that would otherwise have gone elsewhere, $80£60€71A$115C$113 of work at an assumed 80% margin, about $64£48€57A$92C$90. Cost is about $13£10€12A$19C$19 a month: 20 texts at 5p plus the $12£9€11A$17C$17 reply number, excluding VAT.
How to set it up
- Open a free Firetext account; Firetext checks each new account by hand before you can send.
- Buy 500 credits for $33£25€30A$48C$47 enough for months of rain texts, and a $12£9€11A$17C$17 a month reply number if you want text replies.
- Write a short rain template with merge tags for the customer's name and booking time, and two new dates.
- On a wet morning, add that day's customers and send the template, then rebook from the replies.
- Delete old customer numbers you no longer need.
What goes wrong
- A text longer than 160 characters uses more than one credit. Keep rain texts short.
- Without the reply number, customers can't text back into Firetext; they'll ring you instead.
- These are service messages about a booking. Don't add offers unless the customer has agreed to marketing texts.
- Firetext doesn't read your diary. Check the day's list is right before you send.