What we learn while we build software for real businesses.
72 posts
Most software we get called in to fix has the same quiet problem. When something fails, the screen tells the person using it nothing they can act on. "Error 500." "Something went wrong." "Invalid requ...
A phone call is a bad place to store information. The caller hangs up, and everything they just agreed to lives in their memory and in a record they cannot see. If they misheard the day, they find out...
A phone agent that answers for a service business can pass every test before launch and still drift once real callers show up. People mumble. They call from the highway. They ask two questions at once...
Most custom software for a service business is a small amount of code sitting on top of a lot of other people's services. The booking screen is yours. The text messages go out through a messaging prov...
Every service business has a stretch of the year when the phones do not stop. For a heating company it is the first cold week. For a pool company it is the first warm weekend. For a lot of shops it is...
A customer calls to move Thursday's visit to Friday. The phone agent books Friday. The caller hangs up happy. Thursday still sits on the board with a tech assigned and a truck reserved. By lunch the o...
The job is on the board. The address is right. The callback number works. Then the tech pulls up, finds a locked gate, and sits in the driveway for twenty minutes while the office tries to reach the c...
A service business phone agent that books jobs without reading the real schedule will overbook. It sounds confident. It offers Tuesday at 2. The caller says yes. Then the office opens the calendar and...
A service business phone rings dozens of times a day. Some of those callers are brand new. A lot of them are not. They are the same homeowner who booked last spring, the property manager who always us...
When someone leaves a small business, the goodbye usually goes fine. There is a last day, maybe lunch, and the laptop goes back in a drawer. What often does not happen is the boring part: turning off...
Most small businesses we work with can tell us they have backups. Fewer can tell us the last time anyone restored one. That gap is where a bad week starts. A backup that has never been restored is a h...
Every business phone line gets junk. Robocalls about a car warranty nobody has. Someone selling search ads. A recorded voice saying the business listing is about to be removed. A silent call that hang...