PressureWashingBossPro Blog — Crew App

Crew GPS on the Office Map: Knowing Where Every Wash Rig Is

“Where's the crew?” is the most common question in a washing company office. A customer wants to know when the rig will arrive. A commercial manager wants to know if the crew is still on site. A homeowner down the street calls about a driveway and wants it done today. Without GPS, the only way to answer is to call the washer, who is usually holding a wand. Crew GPS puts the answer on the office map.

Location From the Same Phone

The time clock is covered in The Time Clock in the Pressure Washing Crew App. GPS comes from the same phone and the same app.

When a washer is signed in to the crew app and has allowed location on their phone, their location shows on the office map. There is no separate tracker to install in the truck and no extra device to keep charged. The phone the washer already uses for jobs, photos and the time clock is the phone that shows where the rig is.

What the Office Uses It For

Crew GPS earns its place in a handful of everyday situations:

• Answering “when will they be here?” The office can look at the map, see where the rig is relative to the customer, and give a real answer instead of a guess.
• Fitting in new work. A call comes in for a driveway on the north side of town. The office can see which rig is closest and add the job to that rig's route on the dispatch board.
• Handling a skip. When a job gets skipped, the office can see where the rig is and whether there is a nearby job that can be pulled forward.
• Checking on night crews. On a commercial route after close, nobody from the office is out there. The map shows the crew is where the route says they should be.
• Settling questions. When a customer says the crew never came, the office has more than a washer's memory to go on.

GPS and the Customer Map

Customers have their own version, but it is built differently. In the customer app, a homeowner can see where they are on today's route: “You're stop 12 of 20 — the crew is 5 stops away.” That view is about their place in line, so they can plan their morning.

The office map is the full picture: every rig, every crew, all at once. Between the two, most “where are they” calls stop before they start.

Explaining GPS to Your Crew

Some washers bristle at the idea of being tracked. How you explain it matters more than the feature itself. A few points that tend to land well:

• It cuts phone calls. Fewer calls from the office asking where they are and when they will be done.
• It protects them. When a customer claims the crew was never there, the record shows otherwise.
• It helps with add-on work. The office can send nearby jobs to the closest rig instead of sending someone across town.
• It is for work. The point is to know where the rig is during the workday, not to watch anyone's personal time.

Be straightforward. Tell the crew what the office can see and why, before the first day, not after someone notices. The question of whether washers use their own phones or a phone that stays with the rig is closely related, and is covered in Shared Rig Phones or Personal Phones for the Pressure Washing Crew App.

Making Sure It Works

GPS needs two things from the phone: location allowed for the browser or the installed app, and a data connection. If a rig is missing from the office map, the fix is usually one of those:

1. Check that the washer is signed in to the crew app.
2. Check the phone's location setting for the browser.
3. Check that the phone has signal. In a dead zone, the location will not update until the phone is back in coverage.
4. Check that the phone is not in a heavy battery-saving mode that limits background activity.

Do this check during the first ride-along. It is much easier to fix in the shop than to figure out from the office on a busy morning.

One Map for the Whole Company

With one rig, GPS is a convenience. With two or three, it becomes how the office runs the day: who is closest, who is ahead, who is behind, and which rig can take the job that just came in. To see how GPS fits with routing, the Waiting List and the rest of the crew app, visit the pressure washing crew app page.