Servicing at the customer's place

Catalogue → Services → Service areas is where travelling to the customer is set up: whether you do it, where you go, and what the trip costs. Planning the day itself is a different page: see planning a mobile day.

How work reaches you

Step 2 on the page is a list of switches, one for each way a bike can get to you. Turn on every one you offer; customers pick between them when they book.

• They drop the bike at the shop: customers bring it to your counter and pick a date and drop-off window. With mobile servicing on too, it shows as a free option next to pickup. Turn it off if you have no premises
• You go to them (mobile servicing): your booking page asks for the customer's address and only offers the days you visit their area. Off, any areas and travel charges are saved but inactive, so switching off for the winter loses nothing
• Ask for their address before showing days sits under mobile servicing. The calendar stays hidden until the customer enters an address, then shows only their area's days. Best when your areas run on different days
• You collect the bike and bring it back: any service booking can be set up as a collect, service and return job. It doesn't need mobile servicing, because the work happens at your shop
• They send it in by post or courier adds a "Send it in" option. The customer picks the day they are sending it. There is no drop-off window and nothing about storage

Areas and travel charges

• Travel charges come in two shapes. Custom areas: draw each area on a map, with a flat fee per area and the days you cover it, so Tuesdays can be the north side and Thursdays the coast. Distance tiers: charge by distance from the shop, in radius tiers.
• Either way you choose whether the fee is one way or return, and you can offer a no-fee counter drop-off alongside.
• Fees measure from your shop address, set in Shop profile. Pick one of the suggested addresses so it pins on the map; that pin is where your routed day starts and where fees measure from.
• If you also deliver hire bikes, servicing and hire can share one set of areas.
• Each area has its own days. If every area runs the same days, customers at both ends of your patch can book the same day and you could be sent both. Give each area only the days you work it.
• An area can be a list of postcodes (matched by prefix, so "902" covers every code starting 902), a radius ring from the shop or from a community day, or a shape you draw on the map.

Time between jobs

• Shows once mobile servicing is on. Always leave at least keeps a fixed number of minutes clear either side of every appointment, for each mechanic
• Leave room to drive between appointments works out the drive from your average speed: door to door on a normal day, not your top speed. Lower leaves more room
• With both set, each job gets whichever is longer, the drive or the fixed gap. They don't add together
• Only services booked by appointment are affected. A drop-off window has no times in it, so it is unaffected
• When you travel to customers, a window booking is only the span you turn up in, not a time, and two bookings in one window can be at opposite ends of your patch. Switch a service to By appointment (it needs a Duration (minutes)) to give the customer a set time and give Route something to order. New services start as appointments

Collect & return

Collect & return is its own switch, not tied to mobile servicing: you drive out, take the bike, fix it at the shop, and drive it back. Turn it on and any service booking can be set up as a collect, service and return job. See collect & return for return days and letting customers book it themselves.

To let customers book it themselves, use Customers book collect & return at the bottom of the page. You collect the bike in the window they pick, fix it at the shop, and tell them the day it comes back. Your areas' pickup fee applies once. Customers only see collect & return hides the option of a mechanic fixing the bike at their door; drop-off and send-in stay as they are.