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Customer Operations

Intake: one request, whatever the channel

A customer calls, then fills in the web form too. A property manager emails about a tenant's leak. Someone outside your area books online. Intake turns each of them into one structured request with a property, a need, a coverage decision, who authorises the work and an owner, so nothing starts on a guess. We build it on the channels and systems you already use.
Talk through your intakeFollow three requests ↓
Call · 07:52M.D. · 555-0181Web form · 07:58M.D. · same problemEmail · 08:10Acme · Unit 2A tenantWeb form · 08:25R.T. · WestfieldRequest R-1093contactM.D. · 555-0181property9 Willow Ctneedno hot waterareaNorthside ✓owneroffice leadform matched to the callTo the office leadcovered, owner setNeeds a personwho approves the work?Outside the areadeclined kindly, kept

Every channel starts the job differently

A phone call gets the details whoever answers thinks to ask. A web form gets whatever fields it has. An email gets read when someone has a minute. The same customer calls and fills in the form, and now there are two jobs. A tenant reports a leak, and nobody knows whether the landlord has agreed to pay for it.

Intake makes every channel produce the same thing: a request record with what the business needs to act on it, a decision about whether it's covered, and a named owner. What's missing is asked for, what's unclear goes to a person, and what's outside your area is declined without being lost.

Today, and with intake

Today

  1. 01Calls, forms and emails arrive in different places and get handled differently.
  2. 02Details are written down by whoever picks up, in whatever form.
  3. 03The same customer becomes two jobs when they call and fill in the form.
  4. 04Who authorises the work is found out on site, or after the invoice.

Jobs start on a guess, and nobody owns a request until someone remembers it.

With intake

  1. 01Every channel produces one request with the same fields.
  2. 02Missing details are asked for before anyone is sent.
  3. 03Possible duplicates are matched and confirmed by a person.
  4. 04Coverage and authorisation are decided up front, with exceptions to a person.
  5. 05Every request has an owner and a next step.

The first record is complete, so the rest of the job doesn't have to make up for it.

Three requests, three paths

Same intake, three different outcomes. Each is a record, not a message in someone's inbox.

R-1093 · M.D.

channels
call 07:52, web form 07:58 (matched)
property
9 Willow Ct, Northside
need
“no hot water since last night”
authorises
M.D., the homeowner
coverage
in area, water heater repair
owner
office lead
next
offered Thursday morning

What a complete request holds

Contact and preferred channelSo the next message reaches them the way they asked
Property and accessWhere the work is, and how to get in
Who authorises the workThe homeowner, or the landlord or manager who pays
The need, in their wordsKept as said; the request type is a label beside it, never a diagnosis
Coverage decisionInside the area, the work you do, the hours you keep
Owner and next stepOne person responsible, and what happens next

Where people stay in charge

  1. Possible duplicates

    Merged only when confirmed

    The system suggests the match; a person agrees before two records become one.

  2. Authorisation

    When the caller isn't the payer

    Tenants and property managers are handled by your rules, with exceptions to the office.

  3. Edge of the area

    Borderline addresses

    Addresses near the boundary go to the office instead of being declined automatically.

  4. Safety words

    Straight to the on-call line

    Gas, smoke or flooding skip the queue, whichever channel they arrive on.

The parts it's built from

Each part is built and tested on its own, so you can start with one and add the rest.

  1. Capture

    Lead Capture

    Every channel, one request.

  2. Check

    Lead Qualification

    Coverage, authorisation and request type.

  3. Route

    Workflow Automation

    • request
    • rules
    • owners

    unclear or exception → a person

  4. Tell

    Notification Automation

    The owner, and the customer, know what happens next.

  5. Follow up

    Customer Portals

    Customers add photos and access details themselves.

Underneath every stepAPI IntegrationRequests land in your job system through a written contract.

What changes from one business to the next

ChannelsWhich phone lines, forms and inboxes feed intake
Required detailsWhat each request type must have before it's routed
Coverage rulesService area, work types and hours
AuthorisationWho may approve work for rentals and commercial accounts
OwnersWho owns requests, by type, location and time of day

A common starting point is your existing phone system, web forms and job management software, with n8n or Trigger.dev for the workflows and PostgreSQL for the request records when your job system can't hold them. These are starting candidates, not requirements.

Is an intake system the right fit?

Good fit

  • Requests arrive through more than one channel.
  • Details are often missing or collected differently by different people.
  • Some work needs someone other than the caller to approve it.

Avoid when

  • Nearly every request arrives through one well-designed form already.
  • Volume is low enough that one person handles every request from start to finish.

How we'd approach it

Most of the early work is agreeing the details every request needs, your coverage rules and who owns what.

  1. 01

    Understand

    As much as the problem needs

    We map how the work runs today: who does what, which systems hold the records, and where it breaks.

  2. 02

    Design

    Decided before it's built

    Ownership, rules, integrations and exceptions, agreed with you and written down with acceptance criteria.

  3. 03

    Build

    Connected to what you use

    We build the scoped system, connect it to the tools you already run, and test it on the cases that matter.

Related systems

The capabilities underneath

For your industry

Questions about intake systems

Does this replace our booking form?

It can sit behind the form you have. The form, the phone and the inbox all feed the same request, so the form doesn't have to be perfect on its own.

How are duplicates handled?

The system matches on phone, email and address and suggests the merge. A person confirms it, because two requests from one household can be two real jobs.

Does it decide what's wrong with the equipment?

No. It records the customer's description and a request type. Diagnosis stays with your technicians.

What happens to requests outside our area?

They get a polite reply and are kept on record, so you can see the demand and contact them if your area grows.

Start every job from a complete request

Tell us how requests arrive today and what's usually missing. We'll show you what one structured request would look like.

Start a project