Field Service Customer Communication: Automate the Texts, Keep the Trust

Your office staff are spending hours every day on phone calls that could be text messages. Confirming appointments. Telling customers their tech is on the way. Following up after jobs. Asking for reviews. Chasing customers who weren’t home.

None of these require a human voice. They require timely, accurate information delivered at the right moment. And when you automate them, two things happen: your customers actually get better communication (because it’s consistent and never forgotten), and your office team gets hours back every day to handle the calls that genuinely need a person.

The Communication Timeline That Matters

Every field service job has a natural communication rhythm. Most companies handle a few of these touchpoints and miss the rest. Here’s the full sequence:

1. Booking Confirmation (Immediately After Scheduling)

The moment a job is booked, the customer should receive a confirmation — by text or email — with the date, time window, and what to expect. “Your appointment is confirmed for Thursday 14 March, 8am-10am. Our technician will call 30 minutes before arrival.”

This sounds basic, but plenty of field service companies still rely on the receptionist verbally confirming details on the phone and hoping the customer writes them down. A written confirmation eliminates “I thought you said Tuesday” conversations and gives the customer something to reference.

2. Day-Before Reminder (24 Hours Prior)

Send a reminder the evening before or the morning of. “Reminder: your technician is scheduled to visit tomorrow between 8am and 10am. Reply YES to confirm or call us on [number] to reschedule.”

This single message typically reduces no-shows by 30-40%. That’s not a small number. If you’re running 30 jobs per day and your no-show rate is 8%, that’s roughly 2-3 wasted trips daily. At an average cost of $150 per wasted trip (fuel, tech time, lost revenue from the slot), you’re burning $300-$450 per day. A text message that costs 7 cents fixes this.

3. On-My-Way Notification (When Tech Is En Route)

When your tech finishes the previous job and heads to the next customer, an automatic text goes out: “Your technician is on their way. Estimated arrival in 25 minutes.”

This does three things. First, the customer stays home — no more “sorry, I just ducked out for 5 minutes” when the tech arrives. Second, it eliminates the “where’s my tech?” calls that flood your office. Third, it sets the customer’s expectations precisely, so they’re not sitting by the window from 8am when their slot is 8-10am.

If you have GPS tracking on your vehicles, this notification can be triggered automatically when the tech enters a geofence around the customer’s area. If not, a single tap from the tech — “heading to next job” — can trigger the message.

4. Job Completion Summary (Immediately After)

When the tech marks the job complete, send the customer a summary. “Your service has been completed. Work performed: [description]. If you have any concerns, reply to this message or call us on [number].”

This is underused and incredibly valuable. It creates a written record of what was done, gives the customer an easy channel to raise issues immediately (rather than stewing for a week and leaving a bad review), and sets up the follow-up sequence.

5. Satisfaction Check (2-3 Days Later)

“Hi [name], just checking in — is everything still working well after our visit on Monday? Let us know if you have any concerns.”

This message catches problems before they become complaints. A customer whose repair didn’t hold will appreciate being asked. A customer whose repair is perfect will feel looked after. Either way, you’ve created a positive impression with zero effort from your team.

6. Review Request (5-7 Days Later)

“We’d love to hear how we did. If you have a moment, leaving a review helps other customers find us: [Google review link].”

Timing matters here. Too soon and it feels pushy. Too late and the customer has forgotten the details. Five to seven days after the job is the sweet spot — the experience is still fresh but enough time has passed that the request doesn’t feel transactional.

The No-Show Problem (and How to Solve It)

No-shows are one of the most expensive problems in field service, and most companies just accept them as the cost of doing business. They shouldn’t.

The combination of booking confirmation, day-before reminder, and morning-of confirmation call (for non-responders) typically reduces no-shows from 8-12% down to 2-3%. For a company running 30 jobs per day, that’s the difference between 3 wasted trips and nearly zero.

But automation can go further. When a customer does no-show, the system should immediately:

1. Notify the dispatcher so the slot can be reallocated
2. Text the customer — “We missed you today. Reply to rebook or call [number].”
3. Log the no-show against the customer record so you can see patterns (some customers are chronic no-shows, and that’s worth knowing when scheduling future work)

The rebook message is important. Many no-shows aren’t malicious — the customer genuinely forgot, had an emergency, or got the date wrong. Making it easy to rebook captures revenue that would otherwise be lost entirely.

The Reviews Engine

Google reviews are the most valuable marketing asset for local field service companies, and yet most businesses leave them entirely to chance. Some customers leave reviews spontaneously. Most don’t.

An automated review request sequence, triggered after every completed job, changes the maths completely. Here’s what happens when you systemise it:

• Volume goes up. Instead of getting 2-3 reviews per month from customers who are unusually motivated, you get 10-15 because every customer is asked.
• Recency improves. Google favours businesses with recent reviews. A steady stream of 3-4 per week outperforms a burst of 20 followed by silence.
• Rating stabilises. When only highly motivated customers leave reviews, your average is volatile — one unhappy customer tanks your rating because you only have 12 reviews. With a higher volume, one bad review barely moves the needle.

The key is making it effortless. Send a text with a direct link to the Google review page. Not your website. Not a generic “leave us a review” message. A link that opens Google Maps with the review form ready to fill out. Every extra tap you add loses 50% of potential reviewers.

What to Use

Most field service platforms — ServiceM8, Jobber, Housecall Pro, Tradify — include some level of automated customer communication. Start with what your platform offers. Appointment confirmations and reminders are standard. On-my-way notifications are common. Post-job follow-ups and review requests vary in sophistication.

Where platforms typically fall short:

• Conditional logic. “Send the review request unless the customer flagged an issue” requires branching logic that most platforms don’t support.
• Multi-channel delivery. Some customers prefer text. Some prefer email. Some commercial clients need formal email confirmations for their records. Handling this per-customer adds complexity.
• Custom timing. Your HVAC customers might need a different follow-up cadence than your electrical customers. Maintenance contract clients might get different messaging than ad-hoc callers. Generic platforms offer one sequence for everyone.
• Integration with external review platforms. Sending a Google review link is simple. Routing commercial customers to a different review platform, or skipping the review request for internal/warranty work, requires rules your field service app probably can’t handle.

When the standard automation handles 80% of your communication needs, it’s working. When you’re manually managing the other 20% — sending custom follow-ups, making exception phone calls, remembering which customers need special treatment — that’s when the time spent on workarounds starts to justify a purpose-built system.

Start With the Basics

If you’re doing none of this today, don’t try to build the full sequence at once. Start here:

This week: Set up booking confirmation texts and day-before reminders. Most platforms have this built in and it takes 30 minutes to configure. This alone will cut your no-shows and reduce confirmation phone calls.

Next week: Add the on-my-way notification. Have your techs tap a button when heading to the next job. Even a manual text template is better than nothing.

This month: Set up a post-job review request. Start with a simple text message and a direct Google review link. Measure how many reviews you get versus your current rate.

The full automated sequence — with conditional logic, satisfaction checks, and channel preferences — can come later. The basics alone will reduce your office workload by hours per week and improve your customer experience measurably from day one.