TreeBossPro Blog — Tree Service Software

A Customer Portal for Tree Service Clients

Most of the calls a tree company's office takes aren't about trees. They're about information the customer can't see: When are you coming? Did you get my payment? What did I pay last time? Can I update my card?

A customer portal answers those questions directly, so the customer doesn't have to call and the office doesn't have to look things up.

What Customers Actually Want to See

In Two-Way Texting for Tree Companies: One Thread Per Customer, two-way texting kept customer conversations in one thread. The customer app goes a step further by letting customers serve themselves. In TreeBossPro, clients can see their visits, view and pay invoices, keep a card on file, choose which alerts they get and watch a live crew map on service day.

That list is short on purpose. It covers the questions customers ask most, without burying them in features they'll never use.

Visits and History

Customers like to know what's coming and what's been done. The customer app shows their visits, so a PHC customer can see their program schedule and a pruning customer can see when the next cycle is due.

That visibility builds trust. A customer who can see the visits on their program is less likely to wonder whether they're getting what they paid for, and less likely to cancel when a visit happens while they're at work.

This matters most for the work customers never see happen. A homeowner who was at the office when the PHC applicator came by, or when the stump grinder finished the job from last month's removal, can open the app and confirm it was done. Pair that with the completed message and after photos, and nobody has to call to ask whether you actually showed up.

For property managers and owners with more than one address, seeing every property's visits in one place saves a lot of back and forth.

Invoices and Online Payment

The single biggest office time-saver is letting customers pay online. In the customer app, clients can view their invoices and pay them without mailing a check or reading a card number over the phone.

They can also save a card on file. For pruning cycles and PHC programs, a card on file plus auto-billing means invoices get paid when work is done, with no follow-up from the office. For one-time customers, online payment from the invoice is still far easier than a check.

Customers who can see their invoices and payment history don't need to call to ask if a payment went through.

Alert Choices

Not everyone wants the same messages. Some customers want every reminder and alert. Others want only the on-the-way text. A property manager might want arrival and completion notices for every address they manage.

The customer app lets clients choose their alerts. Giving customers control keeps your messages welcome rather than annoying, and cuts down on people asking you to stop texting them.

The Live Crew Map on Service Day

On service day, customers can watch a live crew map in the customer app. For a homeowner waiting for a removal crew, that's the difference between hovering at the window and getting on with their morning.

It also helps with access. A customer who can see the crew is ten minutes out has time to move the car, open the gate and put the dog in, which makes the on-the-way alert from the crew app even more useful.

Introduce the Portal at the Right Time

Customers adopt the portal when there's a reason to. Good moments to introduce it are when you send the first invoice, when a customer signs up for a pruning cycle or PHC program and when they ask about paying by card. A short line in the reminder or invoice message is enough.

Make sure the office knows how the portal works from the customer's side, so they can walk someone through it on the phone. The first few customers who use it will tell you what's confusing. After that, every customer who pays online, checks their own visit schedule or updates their own card is a phone call the office didn't have to take.

The customer app is included in TreeBossPro tree service software so your customers get a modern experience without you building anything. The next article covers what happens behind those invoices: getting tree work billed the day it's done.