What details to collect on a plumbing job request

A plumber who arrives knowing the job brings the right parts and doesn't need a second visit. A booking system's job is to ask enough questions for that, and no more.

Field service software is built around this idea. It lets technicians in the field receive job details, customer and site information, and routing directions¹. What arrives in that job card depends on what was asked at the start.

Who and where

These are the basics, and the ones most often wrong.

• Name and a phone number. Read the number back. One wrong digit means nobody can reach the customer.
• The full street address. Include the unit or flat number, and the suburb. Ask them to spell unusual street names.
• Owner, tenant or agent. For rentals, who approves the work and who pays? A property manager may need to authorise a job before it starts.
• Best way to contact on the day. Some people don't answer unknown numbers, so a text first can help.

What's wrong

Ask in plain words and let the customer describe it. Then ask a few set follow-ups.

• What is happening, and where? A leaking tap, a blocked toilet, no hot water, a smell.
• When did it start? Sudden and slow problems point to different causes.
• Is water or anything else spreading right now? This is the urgency question. The page on routing burst pipes to a person picks that up.
• Has the customer already turned anything off? Whether they've found the isolation valve, for example. (That's the valve that stops water to one fixture or the whole house.)
• Photos, if the system can take them. A photo of the label on a hot water unit or of a leaking joint saves guesswork.

For hot water, add the type: gas, electric, solar or heat pump. For a blockage, ask which fixtures are affected. One slow sink and every drain gurgling are different jobs.

What helps the plumber plan

Dispatching is about matching skills, parts and time windows. Field service scheduling assigns and routes skilled technicians to customer sites, subject to constraints such as skills, parts availability and appointment time windows¹. Questions that feed those constraints:

• Gas involved? Some jurisdictions require plumbers to be licensed², and gas work may need extra authorisation. Check your own regulator.
• Access. Is there a dog, a locked gate, a body corporate or strata key, or a roof or crawl space to get through?
• Parking. A short question that saves a lap of the block.
• Will someone be home? If not, who lets the plumber in?
• Time windows. When is the customer free, and is it flexible?

What not to ask

More isn't better. The Australian privacy regulator says organisations should consider whether the use of personal information in relation to an AI system is necessary³. A plumber doesn't need a date of birth, a driver licence number or card details to book a visit. Leave payment for later, through a proper payment step.

Also ask who will have access to the information the system collects³. If a tool's answers are stored by a third party, you should know where, and for how long. The maker's privacy and security pages should say. For legal questions, go to your country's privacy regulator, such as the OAIC in Australia, the ICO in the UK or the FTC in the United States.

Make the summary short

The plumber reads this on a phone between jobs. A good summary has the name, number, address, a one-line problem, urgency, access notes and the time window. Anything longer gets skipped. The caller's own words are worth keeping as a transcript or recording in case the summary is wrong, where your local rules allow it.