WindowBossPro Blog — Tech App

Skipping a Window Cleaning Job for Rain or No Access, and Noting Why

Every window cleaning company skips jobs. Weather is the obvious reason, but locked gates, empty houses on inside jobs and loose dogs knock jobs off the list too. Skipping is not the problem. Skipping without saying why is. A skip with a clear reason lets the office fix the schedule in minutes; a silent skip turns into a phone call, a confused customer and a job that falls through the cracks.

Skip Is a Message, Not a Shrug

Hard-water photos were the subject of Photographing Hard-Water Results So the Customer Sees What They Paid For. Now for the jobs that do not get that far.

In the WindowBossPro tech app, Skip is one of the three buttons on every job, alongside Start and Complete. Tapping it tells the office the job is not happening today. The note the tech adds tells the office why, and the why decides what happens next. The basics of all three buttons are in Start, Skip, Complete: The Three Buttons That Run a Window Cleaning Day.

Rain

Rain is the classic window cleaning skip, and it is rarely all-or-nothing. A few judgment calls come up again and again:

• Steady rain before the job starts. Skip the outside. Note it: “Steady rain, did not start.”
• Rain arrives mid-job. Note exactly what got done: “Front and east side done, rain started 11:15, rear and west not done.”
• Inside & outside job in the rain. Some customers are happy to have the inside done today and the outside later. That is a question for the customer, and the note should say what they chose.
• Storefronts. Some storefront glass is under an awning and can be done in light rain. The access notes can say so: “Front glass under awning, OK in light rain.”

On a rainy day, the office will often skip or move whole routes before the vans leave. The tech's job is to handle the jobs where the weather changes after the day starts.

No Access

No-access skips are more varied:

• Gate code failed. “Side gate code 3170 did not work. Front done, back not done.”
• Nobody home for the inside. “Inside & outside job. Knocked twice, no answer. Outside done, inside not done.”
• Dog in the yard. “Large dog loose in back yard, note says do not enter. Front only.”
• Something new in the way. “Scaffolding on the back of the house from roofers. Skipped rear.”
• No safe ladder spot. “Patio torn up for remodel, no safe footing for upper rear.”

A quick photo helps with most of these: the closed gate, the scaffolding, the torn-up patio. It turns “the tech says they could not get in” into something the customer can see.

Whatever the reason, do not climb a fence, force a gate or prop a ladder somewhere unsafe to save the job. A skipped side costs one return trip. An injury or a broken fence costs far more, and the customer will remember it much longer than a rescheduled visit.

Writing the Note

A good skip note answers three questions in one or two lines: what stopped the job, what (if anything) got done, and what needs to happen to finish it. “Back gate locked, customer not home. Front and sides done. Need gate open for the rear.”

Avoid notes that only make sense to the person who wrote them. “Couldn't do it” tells the office nothing. “Same as last time” assumes the reader remembers last time. Write it for someone who was not there.

What the Office Does With a Skip

The office sees every skip with its note. From there, the next step is usually obvious:

• Rain: move the job to the next dry day on the dispatch board.
• Failed gate code: text the customer for the new code, update the address, reschedule.
• Nobody home for the inside: text the customer to set a time when someone will be there.
• Partial job: decide whether to bill the part that was done or wait and bill the whole job on the return visit.

The night-before and on-the-way texts cut down on no-access skips in the first place. A customer who knows the crew is coming tomorrow can leave the gate open, bring the dog in or plan to be home for the inside.

A Clean Skip Beats a Silent One

The worst outcome is not a skipped job. It is a job nobody knows was skipped until the customer calls. A tap on Skip and one honest sentence keep the office in control of the schedule and keep the customer from feeling forgotten. For the rest of the tech's phone, visit the WindowBossPro window cleaning app page.