Chimney Sweep Software

Booking a chimney service visit means more than finding an open appointment. Your office needs to know which appliance the customer uses, what service they requested, how the crew will access the property, and whether earlier visits identified work that still needs attention. Returning customers may refer to last year's inspection, while a new homeowner may need help describing the fireplace or stove.

Roll On Call is a field service CRM built for this kind of office work. Staff keep a record for each customer and service address, create jobs with the scope and notes from the call, put those jobs on the schedule, assign a crew, and send the crew a text message with the job details. When the visit is done, staff mark the job complete and send the invoice. Every job stays on the customer's history for next season.

This page walks through how a sweep company can use that workflow, with examples from typical calls. The software holds the information; your staff decide what to record and how to act on it.

Texts to technicians and customers go out from your business number on Team and Pro, which include integrated phone and SMS with one included number. Solo does not include integrated phone or SMS, so a Solo owner works from the job record and calls or texts from their own phone.

A sweep visit can take thirty minutes or half a day depending on the setup. An open masonry fireplace with one flue is a different job from a wood stove insert with a stainless liner, and both differ from a house with a fireplace, an oil furnace flue, and a third flue nobody uses. The first call is the best chance to find out which one you are walking into.

A short set of questions covers most of it. What appliance are you using: open fireplace, insert, freestanding stove, pellet stove, or a furnace or boiler? Wood, pellets, oil, or gas? How often do you burn, and when was the chimney last cleaned? Is the house one story or two, and is the roof steep? Any pets, and who will be home?

Returning customers benefit from an office that can review their previous visits. When a caller gives their name or address, staff can find the customer record and review the jobs and notes your team has recorded for that location.

Take a common example. Mrs. Alvarez calls in September. Her record shows a sweep last October on her insert, a note that the crew used the 32-foot ladder on the north side, and a recommendation that her cap be replaced. The person answering can ask whether she had the cap replaced elsewhere, confirm she still has the same insert, and book the sweep with the ladder note already in place.

Old notes are a starting point, not a guarantee. People replace stoves, reroof, add a deck under the ladder spot, or get a new dog.

Access details save the most time on chimney jobs. Before a crew loads the truck, they want to know the roof pitch and material, the number of stories, where a ladder can be set, and whether the work will be done from the roof, from inside, or both.

Indoor notes matter just as much. A fireplace surrounded by built-in shelving, light carpet, an elderly homeowner who needs extra time to reach the door, or a cat that hides in the firebox all change how the crew sets up. Staff can record those details on the customer or the job and choose which ones go into the crew's text message.

Crews should treat recorded access notes as background, not as a safety check. Conditions change from year to year and day to day. Your own safety procedures and the crew's judgment on site always come first.

In peak season, the schedule is the hardest thing to manage. The office has to fit quick sweeps around longer inspections, liner installs, cap and crown repairs, and the callbacks that come from earlier visits. Some crew members do roof work; others mainly handle inserts and stoves. Rain or high wind can cancel an afternoon of roof jobs on short notice.

In Roll On Call, staff place each job on the schedule and assign it to a crew. The dispatch view shows the jobs recorded for each day and who is assigned, so the person on the phone can see where there is room before offering a time. When two people are answering calls, both work from the same schedule, which helps avoid booking the same slot twice.

When weather cancels roof work, the dispatcher moves the affected jobs to new dates and updates the assignments. Everyone in the office then sees the new plan, and the person who calls the customer can tell them exactly when the crew is coming back.

If you already have three sweeps on the east side of town on Tuesday, offering the next east-side caller a Tuesday slot keeps the crew's drive time down. Staff make that call by looking at the schedule; it is a dispatcher's decision, not an automatic one.

Sweeps often find more work: a cracked crown, a missing or rusted cap, loose mortar joints, a damper that will not close, heavy glaze buildup, or water stains in the firebox. That work is usually quoted and scheduled later, sometimes weeks later. If the finding only lives in the sweep's memory, the follow-up call is vague and the homeowner is not sure what they are agreeing to.

This makes the follow-up conversation simple. Anyone in the office can open the record, see the original sweep, read the note about the cap, and explain the next step. It also helps at the end of the season, when you want to call customers who had a finding but never booked the repair.

Keep formal inspection reports, photos, and written quotes in the system you use for them today. The job notes are a plain-language summary that helps the office and the crew stay on the same page.

Real estate calls follow a different pattern. A buyer's agent may need a chimney inspection before an inspection deadline. The seller controls access, the buyer may be paying, and several people may call about the same house in the same week.

Staff can record the key facts on the job: who requested the work, who has the lockbox code or will let the crew in, who is paying, and the date the answer is needed. When the agent calls back for an update, whoever answers can see the job's status and assigned crew without hunting for the person who took the first call.

Keeping all those calls on one job also protects the homeowner and your business. If the buyer's agent, the listing agent, and the seller each call with a slightly different request, the notes show who asked for what and when.

Older houses often have two or three flues in one chimney: one for the fireplace, one for the furnace or water heater, and sometimes one that has not been used in decades. Duplexes and row houses may share a stack between neighbors. These setups cause confusion about which flue to clean and who is paying.

Clear notes like these help the crew do the job that was sold and help the office answer questions afterward. Questions about ownership or property lines stay between the customers involved.

Once a job is assigned, Roll On Call can send the crew a text with the customer's details, the service address, the job scope, and the notes staff select. For a sweep company, a good message usually includes the appliance, the number of flues, the roof and ladder notes, indoor setup notes, pets, and the arrival window.

The dispatcher should read the message before sending it and leave out anything private that the crew does not need, such as payment disputes or personal details shared on the phone. In busy weeks, many offices also call the first crew of the morning to confirm they have their list.

After each visit, an authorized staff member marks the job complete and sends the invoice. Your business takes payment the same way it does today.

This gives the owner a clear end-of-day view: which jobs were finished, which were rescheduled, and which still need payment follow-up. It also means that next autumn, when the customer calls again, the office can see last year's visit, the repair that followed, and how it was settled.

Roll On Call covers customer records, service addresses, jobs, scheduling, crew assignment, standard job details, and completion, invoices and payments. Before switching, list anything else your business relies on, such as formal inspection reports, photo storage, written quotes, card processing, or automatic yearly reminders, and confirm with our team how each would fit.

Most sweep companies get the biggest benefit from simply keeping last year's notes where this year's phone staff can find them. If that is the main problem in your office, a connected customer and job record is a practical place to start.