TreeBossPro Blog — Tree Service Software

What a Crew App Should Do for Climbers and Groundies

Climbers and groundies didn't get into tree work to stare at a phone. Their hands are full of saws, ropes and brush, they are wearing gloves half the day, and the last thing they want is a form to fill out. Any crew app that adds work will get ignored, no matter how good it looks in a demo.

A good crew app does the opposite. It takes away the phone calls, the clipboard and the end-of-day paperwork, and it asks for almost nothing in return.

Start From What the Crew Actually Needs

In Route Maps and Auto-Routing for Tree Crews, the route got planned in the office. The crew app is where that plan meets the truck. Before a crew can do good work, they need four things: where they are going, in what order, what the job is and what they need to know about the site.

The TreeBossPro crew app gives them the job list for the day, the route, the job details and the property's crew notes and gate codes. That covers most of the calls a foreman makes to the office in a typical morning: what's the address, what are we doing there, how do we get in, where can we drop.

Notes and Gate Codes at the Right Moment

The best time to read site notes is on the way, not after pulling up. When the crew opens the next job, they see the access notes, the drop zone, where the chipper goes, whether the dog is out and the gate code. Nobody has to dig through a group text from last week.

Because notes live on the property, every crew sees the same information. If the regular foreman is out and someone else runs the crew that day, they don't start from zero.

Encourage crews to update notes when something changes. A new fence or a new code takes a few seconds to add from the job and saves the next crew a headache.

Start and Complete Without Thinking About It

Tapping start when the crew begins and complete when they finish is the core of the app. It's two taps per job. In exchange, the office sees progress on the board in real time and doesn't need to call to find out where things stand.

Complete is also what triggers the rest of the chain: the customer gets a completed message, and the job is ready to become an invoice. When crews understand that their tap is what gets the company paid, they tend to take it seriously. Forgetting to tap complete is the most common early mistake, so have the office check the board at the end of the first few days and remind anyone who left a job open.

Photos From the Field

Photos are the one place where a little effort from the crew pays off a lot. Before photos show what the site looked like. After photos show the clean finish. A picture of a cracked leader, a decay pocket or a hazard the crew spotted on another tree is a ready-made lead for the next estimate.

Photos from the crew app are saved to the job and the property, so they're available to the office, the estimator and the next crew. Keep the habit simple: a couple before, a couple after, and anything that looks like a problem.

One-Tap Alerts for the Customer

Homeowners want to know when you're coming. The crew app sends an on-the-way alert and an arrival alert with one tap each. Customers who get the heads-up move their cars, put the dog in and open the gate. The crew doesn't wait around, and the office doesn't take where-are-you calls.

Because the alerts come from the app, they go out even when the office is busy. The crew doesn't need the customer's phone number on their personal phone.

What the App Doesn't Ask For

Notice what's missing: no timesheets typed on the phone, no long forms, no retyping the customer's details. The crew app is built around a crew that is busy working, not one sitting in an office.

That's the real test for any crew app: do the guys keep using it after the first week? Keep it to the job list, notes, start and complete, photos and alerts, and they will. The crew app is included in TreeBossPro tree service software on every plan, and you're never billed per user, so every climber and groundie can have it. The next article looks closer at those customer alerts.