Annual services are the easiest money in the diary and the easiest to lose track of. Service Reminders is the list that stops that happening: every recurring service you do, when it's next due, and a drafted message ready for you to approve when the time comes.
Turn the skill on
Service Reminders is a skill, so it isn't on by default. Open the skills marketplace from Settings, install Service Reminders, and it appears in your sidebar under Operations.
Add a reminder
Go to Service Reminders and tap New reminder. You need four things:
- Client. Who the service is for.
- Service. What it is, in your words. "Annual boiler service", "AC service", "Pump check". This is what the reminder message and the job get called, so keep it plain.
- Due date. When it's next due.
- Repeats. Yearly, every six months, every three months, or one-off.
There's also a Remind setting: how far ahead of the due date you want Mucka to bring it to you. Leave it alone and it follows your usual timing for that kind of visit (see below), or pick two weeks, one month or two months for this customer.
Add a note if there's something the reminder should mention, like tight loft access or a gate code.
Set your usual timing
How far ahead Mucka gets a reminder ready is set once for the business, in Settings → Work → Renewals:
- Landlord gas safety checks (CP12s and the other landlord safety records). Two months ahead to start with, so there is time to get the tenant to agree a day.
- Services and everything else. A month ahead to start with.
Change either and the reminders already waiting move with it, except any you've set by hand for a particular customer, which keep theirs.
A gas safety check done early keeps its date
The gas safety rules let you do a landlord's check up to two months before it's due without losing that time: the next one is still due on the original date, a year on. Mucka does the same with the reminder. Do a check due on 1 December on 15 October, and next year's reminder is for 1 December, not 15 October.
Done more than two months early, or after it was due, next year runs from the day of the visit. This only changes the reminder; the date on the certificate is whatever your engineer puts. If you'd rather every check ran from its visit date, switch off A gas safety check done early on the same screen.
What Mucka does with it
Nothing until the lead window opens. When the due date gets within your Remind setting, Mucka drafts the reminder message and puts it on your Overview as an approval card. You read it, change the wording if you want, and tap to send. Mucka never emails your customer without you approving it first.
Once it's sent, the reminder shows as Reminder sent in the list, and it stays there until the work is booked in.
Chase until booked
Some customers need more than one nudge. Landlords are the usual ones: a safety check that runs over is their problem and yours. Switch on Chase until booked on a reminder and Mucka follows up twice if it still isn't booked in:
- The reminder itself, at your Remind setting (a month before, say).
- A follow-up two weeks before it's due.
- A final follow-up a week before it's due.
Each one is a bit firmer than the last. The moment the visit is booked in, pencilled, marked done or cancelled, the chase stops.
You approve the whole chase once. When the first reminder comes up for approval, the card shows both follow-ups underneath it, with their dates and exactly what they'll say. Approving it sends the reminder now and the follow-ups on their days. The same goes for a batch send: the sheet says which customers are set to chase before you tap send. Switching the chase on after you've approved the first reminder doesn't start anything, because you weren't shown it.
Follow-ups go on weekday mornings, the same way the first reminder went: by text if you texted it, by email if you emailed it. Change their wording in Settings → Customers → Automatic messages, in the Service reminder follow-ups row. Next year's reminder keeps the chase switched on, and you approve it again when it comes round.
When a few are due at once
Approving them one at a time is fine for the odd reminder. When more than three are due together, Mucka stops making a card each and gives you a single card instead: "you've got 12 service reminders due". Tapping it brings you here rather than sending anything.
On Service Reminders there's a button to send the ones that are due. It ticks everything inside its reminder window, and you can untick any you'd rather leave. Tap Review and send and you get the full list of who it's going to, and then the message itself — written out exactly as the first customer on the list will read it, with their name and their service filled in. Everyone else gets the same message with their own details.
If you want to change the wording, tap Edit the wording underneath. That's where you'll see the {{client}}, {{title}} and {{due_date}} shorthand — Mucka swaps those for each customer's real details, which is why the message above reads properly and the box below has curly brackets in it.
Type a field name Mucka doesn't recognise and it will say so, and it won't send until you've fixed it. Better a message that waits than one that arrives saying "your is due".
Fill a day in one area
If you'd rather work your reminders area by area, tap Plan an area day. Pick an area and a day, and Mucka texts the customers due there two real times that fit around the work you already have that day. See Fill a day in one area.
Put your booking link in the email
If you use Online booking, your reminder emails can carry the link to your booking page, so the customer picks a time themselves instead of ringing you.
- On a reminder card, Mucka adds a line to the end of the email with your link: "Or pick a time that suits you online". You see it on the card before you approve, and you can take it out.
- On a batch send, type
{{booking_link}}into the email wording where you want it, for example "Book online at or give us a ring." Mucka fills in your link, and the message above the box shows it exactly as the customer will see it.
It's always the link from your Online booking page, so it can't be mistyped. It only goes in emails: a text can't carry a link, because UK networks filter them out. A customer you're texting gets the text without it.
If your booking page is switched off, any email with {{booking_link}} in its wording won't send, and Mucka tells you why. That's on purpose, so a customer never gets a link to a page that isn't there. Switch the page back on, or take {{booking_link}} out of the wording.
Nothing sends until you tap the send button, and you see every name before you do. Anyone without an email address on file is listed separately and skipped, so you know to give them a ring instead.
Afterwards Mucka tells you exactly who got one. If an email didn't go out, that reminder stays on the list to try again rather than quietly showing as sent.
Send just one
You don't have to wait for a batch. On a phone with the new look switched on, every reminder that's due has a Send reminder button on its card. It opens the same check-and-send sheet with just that customer in it: the message as they'll read it, text or email, and the wording you can change. Nothing goes until you tap send.
The same list puts what needs you first. A Due to send card at the top says how many are due, how many are already overdue and how they'd go (by text or by email), with Check and send to do the lot. In the sheet that opens, everyone starts switched on and you switch off anyone you'd rather leave. Under it the reminders are grouped: To send (overdue first), Waiting to book, Pencilled in, Booked in, Coming up and Done, and each card has its next step on it, like Book it in or See the booked job. The filter button shows the same groups as chips.
Sending a reminder, one or many, needs the permission to approve actions, the same as sending from an approval card.
The statuses, in order
| Status | What it means | |---|---| | Scheduled | On the list, not due yet. Mucka is watching the date. | | Reminder sent | You approved the message and the customer has it. Waiting on them. | | Pencilled in | A service plan visit Mucka has put on your Arrange access list with no date yet. The customer hasn't been told. | | Booked in | The job is in the diary and linked to this reminder. | | Done | The service happened. A recurring reminder has already rolled the next one forward. | | Cancelled | Mucka won't chase this one. |
Not this year
If a customer says no to this year's visit but you'd still like to ask them next year, open the reminder and tap Not this year. It moves on a year from its due date, stays on your list as Scheduled, and shows when they said no. Any chase stops; next year you approve it again.
When they say so by text
If your receptionist answers texts, a customer can just reply to the reminder. When they say they don't want it this year, Mucka moves the reminder on a year straight away and tells them that's fine. You'll see it in the conversation, and the reminder shows when they said no, so you can put it back if they change their mind.
If they say it's already been done by someone else, or that they've moved, Mucka doesn't change anything itself. You get a card in Actions with what they said: Move on a year for a check done elsewhere, or Stop reminder for a customer who has moved. Nothing is sent to them either way.
That's different from somebody who never wants to hear from you again. For them, mark the customer do not contact: Mucka then sends them no reminder at all, by text or by email.
Certificates add themselves
You don't have to set up the first reminder for work you certificate. When you approve a CP12, a Boiler Service Record, a CD/11 or any other certificate that carries a next service due or next inspection due date, that visit goes onto this list on its own, with the date your engineer wrote on the certificate.
It shows up as a normal reminder and behaves like one: it sits there as Scheduled, and when the due date comes within your Remind window Mucka drafts the message and asks you to approve it, same as any other. Nothing goes to the customer off the back of a certificate on its own.
This is the bit that used to catch people out. A customer's first service produced no reminder at all, because there was nothing before it to roll forward, so the next one only got booked if somebody remembered. Now the paperwork does it.
Two things worth knowing:
- You can still change it. Move the date, rename it, change how often it repeats. It's your list.
- If you'd already added one by hand for the same visit, Mucka joins them up rather than leaving you with two lines for the same boiler. It keeps your wording and just links it to the certificate.
Certificates that don't come round again, like a Warning Notice or a tank risk assessment, don't add anything to the list.
No certificate? Finished jobs add themselves too
Plenty of recurring work never gets a certificate. When you finish a job that looks like it comes round again, and there's nothing in the book for that customer at that address, Mucka puts next year's in the list for you overnight. You'll see it there the next morning.
It's dated a year on from the day the work actually happened, named after the job, and set to nudge you a month before. Change any of it, or delete it, same as any other reminder.
Nothing goes to the customer. Adding it to your list is just bookkeeping. You still approve the message next year when it comes due, the same as every other reminder.
Mucka only does this where it's confident the work repeats: annual services, safety checks, planned maintenance. Breakdowns, repairs, call-outs and quote visits are left alone. If it gets one wrong, delete it, and if it misses one, add it by hand.
A new boiler starts the cycle. Finish a job called something like Boiler install or Boiler replacement and Mucka adds a First boiler service a year on, so the customer you fitted it for gets asked back for its first service.
What happens when the service is done
You don't have to come back to this list. When the linked job is marked complete, Mucka marks the reminder done and schedules the next one automatically, counting forward from the date the work actually happened. A boiler serviced in March is next due the following March, even if the reminder originally said January. The one exception is a gas safety check done early, which keeps its date (see above).
Booked some other way
The same happens when the work wasn't booked from the reminder. Say you put a CP12 straight into your diary, or issue a certificate on a job you typed in yourself. When the job is marked complete, or the certificate is issued, Mucka closes the matching reminder at that address and sets up next year's. That means the customer never gets a text asking them to book a check they've just had.
It only closes the same kind of visit. A gas safety check closes the gas safety reminder and leaves the boiler service reminder at the same address alone. A reminder for both stays open until a visit does both.
While that job is still in the diary, the customer isn't asked again. Mucka leaves them out of the reminder cards, and if you pick them in a bulk send it skips them and tells you the day they're booked in for, while everyone else's reminder goes as normal. If the job is cancelled, the reminder comes back.
You can still mark one done by hand if the work happened outside Mucka. Open the reminder and tap Mark done.