Scheduling Software for Appliance Repair Companies
A truck roll to diagnose a refrigerator costs fuel, an hour of a technician, and a slot you cannot resell. Cartoply collects the diagnostic fee before that happens, captures the model number so the part is on board, and routes every call to the tech who covers that address.
You are selling a truck roll, and half your callers think it is free
Appliance repair has an economics problem that most trades do not. The diagnosis is the product, and the diagnosis requires a person, a van, and forty minutes of driving before anyone knows whether the job is a $180 igniter or a compressor that makes the whole repair uneconomical. That cost is real and it is incurred before any decision gets made — which is exactly why a shop that gives away truck rolls is a shop with a thin year.
Meanwhile a large share of inbound is not a booking at all. It is someone reading a model number off a sticker asking what is wrong with it, or asking what you charge, or calling four companies to find one that will waive the trip fee. That conversation costs a call-taker ten minutes and produces nothing. The customers who are actually going to pay for a repair are usually the fastest to book, and they are the ones stuck in a phone queue behind the shoppers.
And then there is the part. A tech who arrives without the right control board is a tech who runs the same job twice — two drives, two windows, and a customer whose freezer has been dead for another five days. The information that would have prevented it is a string of characters on a sticker inside the door, and it takes the customer thirty seconds to type. Cartoply moves all three problems to the same place: the diagnostic fee is authorized at booking, the model number is a required field, and the appointment lands on the calendar of the tech who covers that ZIP code.
What Cartoply does for appliance repair companies
The diagnostic fee is paid before the truck rolls
Attach your trip or diagnostic charge to any service and collect it through Stripe or PayPal at booking. Cartoply authorizes the card first and captures only once the slot is actually secured, so nobody is charged for a booking that lost a race. The effect on your day is immediate: the caller who wanted a free phone diagnosis does not enter a card, and the person whose dryer has been down for a week does it without hesitating. You stop underwriting other people’s comparison shopping.
The model number, before you load the truck
Add up to ten questions per service. Appliance type, brand, model number, serial, approximate age, the symptom in the customer’s own words, whether it is making a noise or throwing an error code, and a photo of the data plate. The model number is the field that matters most — it decides whether the part is on the shelf, on the truck, or three days out from a distributor. The answers land on the appointment and in the tech’s notification email.
Warranty, insurance, and cash work kept apart
These are different jobs with different money attached and they should not share a booking rule. Cash-pay service carries your diagnostic fee. Manufacturer warranty work carries none, needs the purchase date and proof of purchase, and often has a longer window. Home warranty and insurance work needs a claim or authorization number before anyone is dispatched — make that a required question and send the type through manual approval so nothing is reserved until you have verified it. Brand-authorized service is its own real segment, and it gets its own appointment type.
Parts-return visits without a callback queue
Half your jobs are two appointments. The first diagnoses and orders; the second installs. Give the return visit its own appointment type — usually shorter, usually with no diagnostic fee — and send the customer a link once the part has an arrival date. They pick a window themselves instead of your office playing phone tag between a distributor ETA and a customer who works days. Every confirmation also carries a self-service reschedule link with a cutoff you set, so a slipped part ships the appointment forward without a call.
Territory routing that keeps the day tight
Draw each tech’s coverage on a map by ZIP code, city, radius, or a custom shape. A customer enters their address and sees only the availability of whoever covers it. Where two techs overlap, the call goes to the one whose most recent assignment is oldest rather than always the same name, and anyone genuinely booked at that moment is filtered out first. Bookings cluster where you are already driving, which is how a six-call day becomes an eight-call day without a longer one.
Honest durations, buffers, and a daily cap
A dryer belt is not a sealed-system diagnosis and a stacked washer in a second-floor closet is not a range igniter. Give every service its own length, a buffer on both sides for drive and paperwork, and a minimum notice so nothing lands on a truck that is already loaded. Cap calls per tech per day when you know what is actually completable, and the booking page simply stops offering slots past it — no one on your side has to say no.
Who at an appliance repair company uses Cartoply
Owners and service managers
The two numbers that decide the year are your close rate on diagnosed jobs and how many calls a truck completes in a day. Collecting the diagnostic fee at booking raises the first by removing the customers who were never going to authorize a repair. Territory routing raises the second by keeping the day inside one part of the metro. Both are settings, not process changes — you configure them once and the booking page enforces them on every call after that.
Pro runs $7/seat/month — $28 for a four-truck shop, roughly the cost of one wasted diagnostic call a month.
Dispatchers and call takers
The routine call — a known brand, a common symptom, an address inside your area — books itself with the model number attached and the fee already authorized. What is left for a person is the work that actually needs one: a warranty authorization that does not match the serial, a commercial account with three units down, a customer whose fridge is nineteen years old and needs an honest conversation about whether to fix it at all.
Nobody has to read back an appointment window or make reminder calls the morning of. Confirmations and reminders go out on their own.
Technicians
Jobs land in the Google Calendar or Outlook the tech already checks, with the brand, model number, age, symptom, and a photo of the data plate attached. That is enough to pull parts the night before instead of discovering the problem in a driveway. On a paid diagnostic the money is already collected, so the arrival conversation starts with the appliance rather than with a fee.
See it set up for an appliance repair truck
We’ll configure a diagnostic call with your fee attached, model-number intake, a parts-return type, and your service areas — in 15 minutes.
Book a 15-minute demoHow to set up online booking for your appliance repair business
Most appliance repair shops go from signup to a live booking page that collects diagnostic fees in under 30 minutes.
- 1
Create your Cartoply account
Sign up free — no credit card required. Add your company and invite your technicians and office staff.
- 2
Connect technician calendars
Each tech connects Google Calendar or Outlook. Cartoply reads live availability, so a job that ran long or a parts pickup never gets booked over.
- 3
Draw your service areas
Map each tech’s coverage by ZIP code, city, radius, or a custom shape. Addresses outside your area never see open slots, which ends the calls you have to turn down after the fact.
- 4
Create your appointment types
Diagnostic service call, parts-return install, warranty service, home-warranty or insurance dispatch, and commercial laundry or kitchen work — each with its own duration, price, buffer, and daily cap.
- 5
Add your intake questions
Appliance type, brand, model number, serial, age, symptom, error code, whether it is under warranty, and a photo of the data plate. Make model number required — it is the field that decides whether the part is on the truck.
- 6
Turn on the diagnostic fee
Connect Stripe or PayPal and set the fee per appointment type. Cash-pay calls carry it, warranty calls do not. The slot confirms only after the payment is authorized, and your cancellation cutoff decides what happens to it.
- 7
Publish your booking link
Put it on your website, your Google Business Profile, and the bottom of your invoices. Customers book 24/7 and every call routes to the tech covering that address.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best scheduling software for an appliance repair business?
It depends which part of the job you are trying to fix. If you need full field-service management — parts inventory on the truck, invoicing, service history per serial number, purchase orders, and payroll — that is what Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Workiz, and RazorSync are built for. If you do brand-authorized warranty work you already live in the manufacturer dispatch systems too, and nothing replaces those. If your problem is the front of the funnel — truck rolls given away for free, callers who want a phone diagnosis, model numbers you find out about on arrival, and a day that zigzags across the metro — that is the booking and intake layer, and that is Cartoply. It authorizes the diagnostic fee before the slot confirms, makes the model number a required field, and routes each call to the tech who covers that ZIP code. Many shops run Cartoply for inbound booking alongside a field-service platform for everything after the call is confirmed.
How do I charge a diagnostic fee upfront for an appliance repair call?
Attach the fee to the appointment type and connect Stripe or PayPal. When a customer books, they pay before the slot confirms — Cartoply authorizes the card, secures the slot with a database lock, then captures, and voids the authorization outright if the slot was taken in the same moment, so a customer who loses a race is never charged. Set it to whatever your trip charge actually is, waive it on warranty types by leaving the price at zero, and let your cancellation cutoff decide whether a late cancel keeps the fee. Most shops find the fee pays for itself twice: once as revenue on jobs that do not close, and once as a filter that removes the callers who were only ever going to price shop.
How do I get the appliance model number before the technician arrives?
Make it a required intake question on the booking form, right after brand and appliance type, and add a photo upload for the data plate for customers who would rather send a picture than transcribe eighteen characters. Ask for age and the symptom in their own words on the same screen. The answers are stored on the appointment, included in your notification email, and visible in the dashboard, so whoever pulls parts in the morning is working from the actual model rather than a guess. This is the single change that turns two-visit jobs back into one-visit jobs, and it costs the customer thirty seconds.
Can I book warranty work and cash-pay work differently?
Yes — they should be separate appointment types. A cash-pay diagnostic carries your fee, your standard duration, and your symptom questions. A manufacturer warranty call carries no fee and asks for purchase date, retailer, and proof of purchase. A home warranty or insurance dispatch asks for the claim or authorization number and runs through manual approval, which means the booking arrives as a request rather than a reservation: nothing is held, nothing is charged, and it waits in your Requests tab until you have verified the authorization. Approve it and it confirms into a real slot with the normal confirmations; decline it with a reason and the customer gets that reason by email.
How do I schedule the second visit when a part comes in?
Create a parts-return appointment type — shorter than a diagnostic, no fee, and a question field for the job or work-order number — and send the customer that link once the distributor gives you an ETA. They pick a window that works for them instead of your office chasing a callback between a parts desk and someone who works days. If the part slips, the confirmation email already contains a self-service reschedule link governed by the cutoff you set, so the customer moves the appointment themselves and the tech’s calendar updates without a phone call.
How do I stop technicians from crossing town between appliance calls?
Route by territory rather than by whoever is free. Draw each tech’s coverage on a map as ZIP codes, cities, a radius around where they start the day, or a custom shape, and Cartoply resolves the customer’s address to the techs who actually cover it — nobody else is offered. Where coverage overlaps, the call rotates to the tech whose most recent assignment is oldest rather than piling on one name, and anyone booked at that instant is filtered out before the rotation runs. The result is that inbound demand clusters where a truck already is, which is worth more per day than any single scheduling tweak.
Ready to stop rolling trucks for free?
Start free. No credit card required.
Set your diagnostic fee, make the model number required, draw your service areas, and put paid, qualified calls on the board — in under 30 minutes.
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