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Cleaner Planner SMS feature

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Paul600

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Location
Portsmouth
I have used squeegee for the last year but there are certain things that frustrate me and that i still find extremely confusing, especially the appointment/quote/job flow. The quote that gets generated through the app is so basic and badly formatted that I feel too embarrassed to send to a customer. Anyhow just got the 30 day free trial for cleaner planner and first impressions are that I prefer the layout, it seems more logcal and the whole quote system seems way more robust and polished.

However without signing up to textlocal I cant test out the SMS feature which to be honest is my favourite feature of sgueegee. I use it not only for reminders but for invoicing via text as well when the day is done, it's great coz you can customize it so that its personal i.e first name if you want and you can show total amount owed etc. Also saves posting bits of paper through doors ?

How does it work with CP? is there any customisation at all, can you use it for invoicing? I know you can send invoices via Email but the kind of customers I have probably dont check their emails or even have one! They all use SMS

 
I use the SMS feature on CP for sending out messages and also sending out messages for late payers etc. 

I highly recommend 

 
I bought 100 credits to test it out and so far the SMS feature seems very basic. With squeegee you can add tokens such as [firsname] and [outstanding balance], with these you can craft a highly customised message that gets stored ready for you to send at a click of a button.

CP just seems to give you a blank text field every time? I don't want to sit and type out each message every time! There are tokens available on the system that you can use with the email but doesn't work with the SMS feature. Shame its the only thing thats stopping me from potentially moving over?

 
The negative about CP sms is that you have to pay for text local and there is no other option and 100 text credits cost £4.68, I only send out text's for locked gates the evening before I am due and that's it, I leave a calling card after each completed job if no one is at home, they are professionally printed double sided A6 cards 

I appreciate it's you business and you have your own way, but I don't see why you would need to send some many texts regarding invoicing etc, surely you are spending a quite a bit of time sending texts.

 
Iron Giant said:
I appreciate it's you business and you have your own way, but I don't see why you would need to send some many texts regarding invoicing etc, surely you are spending a quite a bit of time sending texts.
Click to expand...
I send everything by text, I stopped carding last year. I personally use my own messages so the number sent doesn’t make a difference or cost me any more. Yes I need to spend 3 minutes per evening sending the messages, but it’s simply pressing ‘send’ as Squeegee generates the message and inserts all variables, including link to the invoice of you want. 

Paul600 said:
I have used squeegee for the last year but there are certain things that frustrate me and that i still find extremely confusing, especially the appointment/quote/job flow. The quote that gets generated through the app is so basic and badly formatted that I feel too embarrassed to send to a customer. Anyhow just got the 30 day free trial for cleaner planner and first impressions are that I prefer the layout, it seems more logcal and the whole quote system seems way more robust and polished.
Click to expand...
Have you spoken to @Squeegee App over these issues? They’re are happy to discuss adding features if you need them. Also, they offer walk throughs so you if it’s still not working properly pickup the phone and get one arranged, they are brand new like that! 

 
Master Jedi Alejandro said:
I send everything by text, I stopped carding last year. I personally use my own messages so the number sent doesn’t make a difference or cost me any more. Yes I need to spend 3 minutes per evening sending the messages, but it’s simply pressing ‘send’ as Squeegee generates the message and inserts all variables, including link to the invoice of you want. 

Have you spoken to @Squeegee App over these issues? They’re are happy to discuss adding features if you need them. Also, they offer walk throughs so you if it’s still not working properly pickup the phone and get one arranged, they are brand new like that! 
Click to expand...


Thanks for the mention, and absolutely, if you'd like to hop on a walk through just let us know and we'll get you booked on. 

Regarding quotes, it's been a long time coming but an overhaul is in progress so there is an entire quoting section, better layout and much more in terms of when quotes are accepted, rejected etc... 

Oh and sneaky preview, ? we are testing push notifications internally so this could be one of the things that you get notified of, when a customer accepts or rejects a quote? 

 
Iron Giant said:
I appreciate it's you business and you have your own way, but I don't see why you would need to send some many texts regarding invoicing etc, surely you are spending a quite a bit of time sending texts.
Click to expand...
Yes everyone has their own way certainly, I think it all depends on your demographic and size of business..lot's of old dears then you probably need paper slips, commercial customers will need professional looking quotes and invoices via Email, but most of my customers are domestic properties with the owners between the age of 30 and 65 and it's been proven that the open rate of SMS messages is 98% - 90% within 3 hrs! (That's from the textlocal site) whereas email is way less - something like 20%. People open texts and read them almost immediately, emails get ignored with all the rest of the spam and paper slips through the door get lost with the local takeaway flyer!

I find that a personal text with active link to payment page, GoCardless signup and FAQ's on my website is very effective. It's a click away for the customer and literally just a few seconds for me to send at the end of the day, a lot quicker than dealing with printing out slips , writing out slips or designing and ordering printed media. I also clean a fair few flats so it means I don't have to gain access, run up the stairs and post the slip, and it's one less thing to remember at the time and can save a trip back to the van if you forget it.

I also send reminders to everyone I clean so they are expecting me and I think people love this, I've had so many comments from people that their last cleaner never told them when he was coming and they had no direct communication link with them to adjust their schedule or whatever. 

I'm not saying my way is best, it just fits my business and personality, If I had 1000's of customers I would probably do thing different.

 
@Squeegee App Thanks for the reply. I have been using the app for almost a year now so don't need a walkthrough, i've worked most of it out, but thanks for the offer! However some kind of guide would have been nice?! A lot of the features, especially the appointment/quote/job/invoice workflow is quite unintuitive and has had me scratching my head more than a few times and there's no reference guide apart from a smattering of videos.Everything has to be done through the support chat. And to be fair you do seem to answer support queries fairly quickly, but unfortunately the chat app has never been the greatest, for example at the moment the chat app doesn't work, it flashes up with the content and then disappears before you can read it? I think you tried to fix it a few months ago because before the last refresh it wouldn't keep any of the chat history stored so all the info you were supplying to my questions was getting lost. I believe you're changing it again? Hope it finally works this time?

Pleased to hear your working on things but new features seem to have really slowed down recently? I really love the SMS capabilities as that's how I work, love the tokens you can use for customisation and up to now, for my domestic customers that primarily use text as a means of communication, it's worked great and really helped me establish my business in a stress-free organised way. However as I'm growing I'm starting to pick up bigger jobs and more commercial type stuff that requires a robust quote/invoice system and I'm starting to find the limitations. Yes I could send Emails with PDF's attached made with word or google Docs but it breaks the workflow. I'm really hoping that you do improve it soon as I really want to keep using Squeegee as my business moves to the next level.

 
Paul600 said:
@Squeegee App Thanks for the reply. I have been using the app for almost a year now so don't need a walkthrough, i've worked most of it out, but thanks for the offer! However some kind of guide would have been nice?! A lot of the features, especially the appointment/quote/job/invoice workflow is quite unintuitive and has had me scratching my head more than a few times and there's no reference guide apart from a smattering of videos.Everything has to be done through the support chat. And to be fair you do seem to answer support queries fairly quickly, but unfortunately the chat app has never been the greatest, for example at the moment the chat app doesn't work, it flashes up with the content and then disappears before you can read it? I think you tried to fix it a few months ago because before the last refresh it wouldn't keep any of the chat history stored so all the info you were supplying to my questions was getting lost. I believe you're changing it again? Hope it finally works this time?

Pleased to hear your working on things but new features seem to have really slowed down recently? I really love the SMS capabilities as that's how I work, love the tokens you can use for customisation and up to now, for my domestic customers that primarily use text as a means of communication, it's worked great and really helped me establish my business in a stress-free organised way. However as I'm growing I'm starting to pick up bigger jobs and more commercial type stuff that requires a robust quote/invoice system and I'm starting to find the limitations. Yes I could send Emails with PDF's attached made with word or google Docs but it breaks the workflow. I'm really hoping that you do improve it soon as I really want to keep using Squeegee as my business moves to the next level.
Click to expand...
Hey mate, I’m sure they will reply tomorrow but just to say, the walkthrough is personalised to you, to show you the stuff you need help with. I used one the other day to learn new features and they didn’t waste time showing me stuff I already knew, if that makes sense!

 
Paul600 said:
Yes everyone has their own way certainly, I think it all depends on your demographic and size of business..lot's of old dears then you probably need paper slips, commercial customers will need professional looking quotes and invoices via Email, but most of my customers are domestic properties with the owners between the age of 30 and 65 and it's been proven that the open rate of SMS messages is 98% - 90% within 3 hrs! (That's from the textlocal site) whereas email is way less - something like 20%. People open texts and read them almost immediately, emails get ignored with all the rest of the spam and paper slips through the door get lost with the local takeaway flyer!

I find that a personal text with active link to payment page, GoCardless signup and FAQ's on my website is very effective. It's a click away for the customer and literally just a few seconds for me to send at the end of the day, a lot quicker than dealing with printing out slips , writing out slips or designing and ordering printed media. I also clean a fair few flats so it means I don't have to gain access, run up the stairs and post the slip, and it's one less thing to remember at the time and can save a trip back to the van if you forget it.

I also send reminders to everyone I clean so they are expecting me and I think people love this, I've had so many comments from people that their last cleaner never told them when he was coming and they had no direct communication link with them to adjust their schedule or whatever. 

I'm not saying my way is best, it just fits my business and personality, If I had 1000's of customers I would probably do thing different.
Click to expand...
I am similar to yourself as in client base of 30-65 years of age plus, but I have almost 300 jobs on GoCardless with a 100+ either cash,bacs or cheque, so payment reminders via text aren't needed  I am also almost as regular as clockwork so I am renowned for my reliability

I guess I am old fashioned in terms of  a calling card, so clients know I have been on the day, plus the info on both sides of the card reinforces my brand and the quality of service I offer, it also has my name on so every client knows and remembers my name and a little message to encourage them to contact me should they have any questions about the service I offer

 
Paul600 said:
@Squeegee App Thanks for the reply. I have been using the app for almost a year now so don't need a walkthrough, i've worked most of it out, but thanks for the offer! However some kind of guide would have been nice?! A lot of the features, especially the appointment/quote/job/invoice workflow is quite unintuitive and has had me scratching my head more than a few times and there's no reference guide apart from a smattering of videos.Everything has to be done through the support chat. And to be fair you do seem to answer support queries fairly quickly, but unfortunately the chat app has never been the greatest, for example at the moment the chat app doesn't work, it flashes up with the content and then disappears before you can read it? I think you tried to fix it a few months ago because before the last refresh it wouldn't keep any of the chat history stored so all the info you were supplying to my questions was getting lost. I believe you're changing it again? Hope it finally works this time?

Pleased to hear your working on things but new features seem to have really slowed down recently? I really love the SMS capabilities as that's how I work, love the tokens you can use for customisation and up to now, for my domestic customers that primarily use text as a means of communication, it's worked great and really helped me establish my business in a stress-free organised way. However as I'm growing I'm starting to pick up bigger jobs and more commercial type stuff that requires a robust quote/invoice system and I'm starting to find the limitations. Yes I could send Emails with PDF's attached made with word or google Docs but it breaks the workflow. I'm really hoping that you do improve it soon as I really want to keep using Squeegee as my business moves to the next level.
Click to expand...
Cheers Paul, we did slow down on new features somewhat towards the end of 2019 as we needed some quite large server upgrades to cope with the extra load of so many extra new users without slowing things down to everyone else. 

The current chat feature definitely does the disappearing act with some users and chat 2.0 is nearly ready to get released which will sort this. 

We're also working on updated documentation to help users with different features in smaller chunks that can be replaced as and when things are upgraded and added to. 

As always we're keen to have feedback and to add the extras that our users need so thanks again! ? 

 
@Squeegee App cheers for that, I can understand scaling up your servers for all your new customers must be a challenge but to be perfectly honest with you I have experienced nothing but a serious slow down in how the app respond/functions. In fact I don't even bother updating any jobs when I'm out and about anymore as even just a simple swipe to mark a job as done can take several minutes for the app to deal with. I now wait until I'm home and use the web version, which is not much faster but means I'm not sat in the van waiting for the app to finish it's thing for 5 mins before seeing where I'm off to for the next job.

I've tried updating/ re-installing but nothing works and I have a fast 4g connection as I work in a city. And also the fact that the web app does the same which is connected via ethernet over 100mb fibre proves its your servers that are the problem.

I don't mean to come across as negative but I just want you know the reality as an end user and not be under any illusion so you can make this product great

scottish cleaning service said:
How much does Squeegee App cost a month?
Click to expand...
It's £9.99 I think

For all is faults I wouldn't be without it, it saves me so much time and is great value for money, in fact I would pay a lot more if it was polished and worked exactly exactly how I wanted.

Thoroughly recommend it ?

 
Paul600 said:
@Squeegee App cheers for that, I can understand scaling up your servers for all your new customers must be a challenge but to be perfectly honest with you I have experienced nothing but a serious slow down in how the app respond/functions. In fact I don't even bother updating any jobs when I'm out and about anymore as even just a simple swipe to mark a job as done can take several minutes for the app to deal with. I now wait until I'm home and use the web version, which is not much faster but means I'm not sat in the van waiting for the app to finish it's thing for 5 mins before seeing where I'm off to for the next job.

I've tried updating/ re-installing but nothing works and I have a fast 4g connection as I work in a city. And also the fact that the web app does the same which is connected via ethernet over 100mb fibre proves its your servers that are the problem.

I don't mean to come across as negative but I just want you know the reality as an end user and not be under any illusion so you can make this product great

It's £9.99 I think

For all is faults I wouldn't be without it, it saves me so much time and is great value for money, in fact I would pay a lot more if it was polished and worked exactly exactly how I wanted.

Thoroughly recommend it ?
Click to expand...


Sounds good, will be getting it or something like it in the summer if i continue to grow.

 
I used CP briefly a couple of years ago. It's a good reliable planner and certain parts are good. But other areas are so basic and tbh I don't think it's changed too much in years. The text invoices are very basic as you say, in fact the whole app side of it is and I'm surprised in an age when a lot more people use their phone than their computer they haven't updated that yet and still continue to have it as a more computer friendly software. Squeegee is much better for all that. As you say customised texts, texts automatically sent as soon as you swipe. The dream.  

 
I use squeegee and haven't used anything but my phone in over a year.

No need to even have a pc or laptop.

 
Paul600 said:
@Squeegee App cheers for that, I can understand scaling up your servers for all your new customers must be a challenge but to be perfectly honest with you I have experienced nothing but a serious slow down in how the app respond/functions. In fact I don't even bother updating any jobs when I'm out and about anymore as even just a simple swipe to mark a job as done can take several minutes for the app to deal with. I now wait until I'm home and use the web version, which is not much faster but means I'm not sat in the van waiting for the app to finish it's thing for 5 mins before seeing where I'm off to for the next job.
Click to expand...


Same as you, it's easier to mark the jobs done, once home, on the PC. 

 
wezza13 said:
Same as you, it's easier to mark the jobs done, once home, on the PC. 
Click to expand...
I do it on the go on my phone and had no issues.

There was an issue in the past with some jobs marked as owing but had paid but just have to go on the customer and click on finance and adjust accordingly and job done.

No issues lately though.

Very intuitive to use if you have a play around.

Maybe that is where @Squeegee Appneeds to educate users as I find it easy but others may not.

I find it very easy to cancel an invoice or create a new one etc but not everyone will.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Dave B said:
I do it on the go on my phone and had no issues.

There was an issue in the past with some jobs marked as owing but had paid but just have to go on the customer and click on finance and adjust accordingly and job done.

No issues lately though.

Very intuitive to use if you have a play around.

Maybe that is where @Squeegee Appneeds to educate users as I find it easy but others may not.

I find it very easy to cancel an invoice or create a new one etc but not everyone will.
Click to expand...
We're always happy to help in any way, and will investigate possible bugs - if it's taking a long time to load then it sounds like there's an issue either with the device or the app as it should be super speedy ? 

 

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