Communications are used to send messages to your customers through the JobStaq app and website. This article will summarise the available communication methods, and their limitations.
Once you’ve sent a communication, you’re able to view it’s content and status at any point in time. The status of a communication is shown on a timeline to indicate the stages it has been through, and when they were reached, for example, when an email was sent, delivered, and opened. For some status levels which result in failure or need your attention (such as an email provider rejecting your email), we’ll send you an email to notify you of the issues so that you’re able to take action and are aware your customer didn’t receive the message,
With email communications, you’re able to send messages to your customer’s email address. You can specify other users to be CCd / BCCd into the message (our site and app will suggest emails of other customers related to the job where appropriate). You can also attach any files which you’ve uploaded to JobStaq, or have been automatically generated (for example, invoices) to your emails, up to a limit of 10MB.
Emails are free to send. We add a reply to address matching the email address you have set in your company settings so your customer replies will be delivered to your inbox.
SMS
SMS allows you to send messages to the mobile number of your customers. With SMS, you are currently only able to send text without any attachments (though we are investigating adding attachment support, so if this is useful to you please let us know).
SMS messages are billed at the rate indicated on the pricing page for your plan, and you are billed per segment of 160 characters, so we advise that you attempt to keep your SMS message concise to reduce your costs. As SMS messages have higher open rates than emails, you may wish to use these to notify customers when an engineer has departed to their property (using triggers), or to let them know an invoice has been issued & link to the customer portal so they can pay online.
You can either configure SMS messages to be sent from your mobile number, or from an alphanumeric code of your company name (eg. BOILERSWIGAN). Note that while a text code may be clearer to customers who the message is from, you will be unable to receive any replies to the messages. For more details on sender options, click here to see our article.
Printed Letter
Printed letters allow you to type out a cover letter and select PDF files which you’ve uploaded to JobStaq (or are automatically generated), and have these printed and sent to one of your customers properties. This allows you to quickly send printed communications to your customers without having access to a printer, or requiring to get a stamp and go to a postbox, which will save you time.
You are billed based on the number of pages which you send, at the rate indicated on the pricing page for your plan. We have a fixed fee for the stamp, envelope, and first page printing, and then a small fee for any additional page you print, up to a limit of 10 pages. Note that you will always be billed for the cover page even if the message is empty, as we require this so the address is in the correct position to show in the envelope window.
Letters are posted second class by one of our printing partners, and in most cases will arrive to your customers within 2-3 working days.
Inbound / Outbound Phone
Inbound and outbound phone methods are used to log key details of calls which you’ve made to a customer through your phone. Inbound is for received calls from customers, and outbound for calls you've picked up from customers. They are the only communication method which currently don’t actually result in the content being sent to the customer, but instead behave similar to the notes fields available in the software.
These methods are currently only available through the web interface.