Add, find and review a customer

Overview#

In TradesWork a customer is the person or business you bill. Each customer has one or more service locations, and each job happens at one location. You create a customer at the same moment you book their first job, so you never end up with a customer who has nowhere to send a technician. The customer page then gathers their locations, equipment, jobs, calls, memberships, cards on file and portal access in one place.

Before you start#

• To see customers you need the customers.read permission. Every office role has it: Owner, Admin, Dispatcher, Customer service, Accounting and Viewer.

• To create a customer you need jobs.write (Owner, Admin, Dispatcher, Customer service), because a new customer is always created with a job.

• To add locations, equipment and contacts on an existing customer you need customers.write (Owner, Admin, Dispatcher, Customer service).

• Technicians don't use the customer list. They see customer details on their appointments in the Field app.

Steps#

Create a new customer#

1. Click Book job in the top bar (or New customer & job on the Customers list).

2. In Existing customer?, search the name, phone or email first. If they're already on file, click Book next to them instead of creating a duplicate.

3. Under New customer, fill in:

   • Name (required).

   • Type: Residential or Commercial. Commercial unlocks contacts, account terms, tax exemption and agreements on the customer page.

   • Phone and Email. A mobile number lets you text the customer.

   • Street (required), City, State, ZIP.

   • Access notes, such as gate code, pets or parking.

4. Fill in the Job card:

   • Job type (sets the default duration), Business unit (or leave From job type), Campaign (where the call came from) and Priority (Normal, High or Emergency).

   • Summary (required), such as "No heat, furnace short-cycling", and an optional Description of what the customer told you.

5. Click Book job. The customer, their first location and the job are created together, and the job lands unscheduled on the dispatch board.

Find a customer#

1. Click Customers in the top bar.

2. Type part of the name, phone number or email in Search by name, phone or email and click Search.

3. Click the customer's name to open their page. Click Clear to go back to the full list (most recent first).

The list shows each customer's Type, Phone, Email and Primary location. "+2 more" means they have more locations.

Read the customer page#

From top to bottom you'll find:

1. Calls with this customer, and click-to-call if you can place calls.

2. Texts: whether you can text them. Can text means a mobile number is on file and they haven't opted out. Opted out shows how (replied STOP, unsubscribed with the carrier, or recorded by the office).

3. Notes (if the customer record has notes, for example from an import).

4. Locations, each with its tags, access notes and the Equipment installed there.

5. Memberships, Financing history and, for commercial customers, Service agreements, Contacts, Account terms and Tax exemption.

6. Job history with each job's number, summary, status and date.

7. In the right column: Credit hold, Cards on file, Customer portal, and the Add location and Add equipment forms.

Stop texts to a customer who asked#

1. On the customer page, next to Texts: Can text, click Customer asked not to be texted.

2. Confirm. All texts to this customer stop. Only the customer can turn them back on, by texting START.

Settings that change this#

• Settings › Appearance: your skin changes the words on these pages (for example "Client" or "Address" instead of "Customer" or "Location").

• Settings › Phones › Phone Numbers, Call Recording & Texting: texting must be set up before the Can text state means texts actually go out.

Tips#

• Always search before you create. The Existing customer? search on the booking page is the fastest way to avoid duplicates.

• Put anything a technician must know before arriving in Access notes on the location, not in the job summary. Access notes show in yellow on every job at that address.

• A customer with no locations can't be booked. Add a location first.

Troubleshooting#

• The Book job button is missing on the customer page → the customer has no location yet, or you don't have jobs.write → add a location, or ask an owner or admin for a role that can book.

• Search finds nothing → search matches name, phone and email only → try part of the name or the last digits of the phone number.

• I can't see the Add location form → your role is read-only for customers (Accounting or Viewer) → ask a Dispatcher, Customer service rep or admin to add it.

• Texts show "No mobile number on file" → there is no textable number on the customer → add the customer's mobile number (today this happens when booking; see FAQ).

FAQ#

Can I edit a customer's name, phone or email after creating them? Not from the office yet. Editing the customer's own details is coming soon. Today you can add locations, equipment and (for commercial accounts) contacts, but the name, phone, email and type set at booking stay as entered. Contact support if a correction can't wait.

Can I merge two duplicate customers? Merging customers is coming soon. Until then, book new work on the record you want to keep.

Is there a "do not service" flag? Not yet. Use a location tag (for example "Call office first") and access notes to warn technicians. If the account owes money, an office person with billing rights can put the customer on credit hold.

Can I add customer-level tags? Tags live on locations, not customers. See Service locations, access notes and tags.

Where do customers come from besides the booking page? Online booking, the AI receptionist, the public API and the ServiceTitan import also create customers.

Coming from ServiceTitan#

• Same: the customer → location → job → appointment model. A customer can have many locations; each job has one location.

• Different: you create a customer while booking their first job, not from a separate "Add customer" screen. Editing core fields, merging duplicates and the "Do not service" flag aren't in TradesWork yet.

• Where it lived: ServiceTitan's Customers search and customer page map to Customers in the top bar and /customers/<id>.