PlumbingBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Letting Plumbing Customers Update Their Card From the Customer App

Every plumbing office has done it: a customer calls with a new card, someone grabs a pen, the customer reads sixteen digits and an expiration date, someone types it in, and the sticky note goes in the trash, hopefully. It works, but it is slow, it is error-prone, and it puts card numbers in places they should not be.

There is a better way. Let customers update their own card.

Where This Comes Up Most

Card updates usually follow a decline, the situation covered in Declined Cards on Plumbing Jobs: What Happens and What the Office Does Next. But they also come up when a card expires, when a customer wants to switch from a debit card to a credit card, or when a business account changes who pays.

What the Customer App Lets Them Do

Every PlumbingBossPro client can use the customer app on their phone. On the billing side, they can:

• Add a card on file if they do not have one
• Update the card when it expires or is replaced
• See their invoices, paid and unpaid
• Pay an invoice online

The same app lets them see the live route on service day (“You're stop 12 of 20 — the crew is 5 stops away”), request service, sign up for services such as a yearly water heater flush plan, rate the visit, refer a friend and choose their alerts. Billing is one more reason to open it.

Why Self-Service Is Better

• No card numbers on the phone. Nobody in your office hears or writes down a card number.
• No typos. The customer types their own card. If it is wrong, they find out right away.
• Any time of day. Customers fix it at 10pm on their couch, not during office hours.
• Less office time. A card update that took a phone call now takes a text with a link.

How to Ask a Customer to Update Their Card

Keep the message short and specific. Send it by two-way texting from the office so any reply comes back to the client record:

• “Hi Mark, your card on file has expired. You can update it in our customer app any time, and your next flush will charge to the new card.”
• “Your card didn't go through for Tuesday's drain cleaning. You can update it and pay the invoice in our customer app.”

Do not ask them to reply with the card number. If someone does text a card number anyway, update it in the office and ask them not to send it that way next time.

Expiring Cards on Plan Customers

The customers most worth watching are recurring plan customers: yearly flushes, softener service, backflow tests, and restaurants on a monthly jetting schedule paid by card. Their next visit will try the card on file. If that card expired since the last visit, the charge will fail.

A simple habit helps. When planning the coming week from the Waiting List, glance at plan visits coming due and remind any customer whose card needs updating. A text a few days ahead saves a decline after the job.

Helping Customers Who Are Not App People

Some customers, often older homeowners, will not use an app no matter how simple it is. That is fine. They can pay invoices another way your office accepts, and you can still mark the invoice paid. The customer app is an option that saves time for most people, not a rule that turns anyone away.

For customers who are willing but unsure, the tech can help at the end of a visit: “Want me to show you where to update your card? Takes a minute.” Once they have done it once, they will do it themselves next time.

Business accounts benefit too. When a restaurant changes owners or a property management company switches who handles payables, the new contact can add their card in the customer app instead of emailing it around the office. That keeps payment details with the person responsible for them and out of shared inboxes, which is safer for everyone involved.

The Office Still Sees Everything

When a customer updates their card or pays online, the office sees it on the client in PlumbingBossPro. Unpaid invoices drop off the past-due list once they are paid, and the next charge uses the new card.

For online payments in more detail, see Online Payment From the Customer App: Letting Plumbing Customers Pay From Their Phone. For how card updates fit into the whole billing system, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumbing invoicing software page.