Book and Triage Jobs Properly from the First Contact
EPISODE 15 | TECH FOR TECHS
It worked yesterday is true of an impressive number of broken things. It is also not much of a repair brief. Good intake helps you find out what changed, what arrived and who can approve the next step, without making the customer feel they are being interviewed by the police.
Picture a laptop arriving with a charger and the description just gone funny. Funny how? Slow, flickering, not charging, or making a noise usually associated with agricultural machinery? Ask the customer to describe what they saw. Then ask what happened before it. Record the condition and accessories. Neutral questions tend to produce better answers than a raised eyebrow. The coffee incident is much easier to discover when admitting it does not feel like pleading guilty.
Make the process work in real life
Triage simply means finding enough out to choose the right next step. You are not diagnosing every fault over the telephone. You are checking the route, expectations, access and possible risks before booking a job that somebody can actually deliver.
What the real jobs taught me
Customers rarely walked in and opened with, "I dropped it, spilled something on it and then tried three internet fixes." We usually heard, "It just stopped working." Sometimes they were embarrassed. Sometimes they genuinely did not connect the incident with the fault. Either way, the intake process had to uncover facts without turning into an interrogation.
One customer wanted a new flat LCD monitor replaced because the screen had burned. Inspection showed a cigarette had been put out on it. They explained that they had always done that on the old box-style CRT monitor. New technology had arrived. The old habit had come with it. The warranty, unsurprisingly, had not.
We also saw laptops with keyboards damaged by cat urine or vomit, yet the first description could still be a mysterious keyboard failure. That is why we photographed condition, recorded odours and liquid signs, and asked neutral questions about drops, pets, spills and recent events. Evidence is not about catching the customer out. It is about starting the job with the same reality on both sides of the counter.
One device one recorded journey
At Chips, the first step for every repair, even a simple one, was to deal with backup. That did not always mean copying everything. A failing drive may make copying risky. An encrypted device may be inaccessible.
Things happen. A device can be dropped, a drive can fail during testing and a repair that looked simple can expose another fault. Hardware can usually be repaired or replaced. The only copy of a family photograph does not have a distributor part number.
Terms should explain diagnosis, quotes, approvals, data, backups, abandoned equipment, uncollected devices, special-order parts, warranty limits, contamination and what happens when additional faults appear. They should be readable. If customers need a solicitor to understand the booking form for a £60 repair, clarity has failed.
Set expectations in conversation as well. Tell the customer when they will hear from you, not when you hope the repair will be finished. “We will assess it by Thursday and contact you” is safer than “It will be done Thursday” when no diagnosis exists.
How did the customer discover the business? Could they find the right contact details? How long did the phone ring? What did staff promise? Was the booking recorded fully?
Ask for the symptom in ordinary language
When somebody says a laptop is slow, ask when they notice it and what they are trying to do. Starting the machine, opening a browser and exporting a video are different problems. Record the customer's words before translating them into a technical theory. Ask what changed and what has already been tried. Make the deadline explicit, but do not promise it before assessing the work. A short video of an intermittent symptom can help when it is safe to obtain and contains no unnecessary private information. Better questions reduce repeat conversations and expensive guesses.
Ask about damage without accusing the customer
A recent screen warranty discussion showed why intake evidence matters. A crack may suggest damage, but its appearance alone does not establish exactly how or when it happened. Record the device's condition, what the customer reports and any previous work before deciding what to do. Ask neutral questions about drops, pressure, liquid and attempted fixes. Embarrassed customers often remember more when you give them room to explain. You need useful information, not a courtroom performance at the counter.
My Sony repair experience also makes accessories important. Identify every charger, adapter and device with the same job reference. Record what arrived and what must return. Before a visit, establish the model, location, symptoms, available access and who can approve chargeable work. For a business machine, check the operational impact and whether a spare exists. For a home device, explain the data and backup question before opening it. A short intake process is valuable because it prevents the wrong journey, wrong part and wrong assumption, not because it creates an impressive form nobody reads.
A Few Good Men supplied “You can't handle the truth!” The repair desk should have the opposite effect. Make it easy for the customer to say the coffee arrived before the fault did.
Fit the approach to your business
Repair shop: A shop should record the device, accessories, condition, fault description, customer priority and visible damage at handover.
Callout technician: A callout technician should confirm address, parking, equipment, users affected, internet access and whether remote checks were attempted.
MSP: An MSP should capture user impact, number of users affected, service involved, urgency and evidence before assigning priority.
Give the next job a better process
Create separate intake forms for workshop, callout and managed support work.
Use the customer’s description of the symptom before adding your technical interpretation.
Photograph condition and accessories for devices where damage or missing items could be disputed.
Set an initial priority using impact and urgency rather than whoever complains loudest.
Confirm the next contact point and avoid promising a completion time before diagnosis supports it.
Check before you carry on
What information is repeatedly missing at intake?
Who decides the initial priority?
Are accessories and condition recorded?
What promise is safe before diagnosis?
The next useful move
Five sensible questions now can save fifty minutes parked in the wrong postcode.
Ask the useful question now, before the missing charger gets its own ticket.
About the author
Written by Philip Griffiths of Tech For Techs Group Ltd, drawing on his experience of owning and operating a nationally award winning computer repair business.
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