Electricians: fitting small jobs into your week

Small electrical jobs fit best when you give them their own days and areas. Open short slots that include travel and set-up, not just the work, group them by part of town so you're not crossing it three times a day, and state a clear minimum charge so a single light fitting still covers your time. Treat fault finding as its own visit, since you don't know the fix until you've found the fault, and leave some margin in each small-job day for the job that turns out bigger than described.

Adding a socket or fitting a light may take under an hour. Getting there, parking, protecting the floor, isolating the circuit, testing and tidying up take almost as long again. If the next small job is on the other side of town, the drive between them can cost more time than either job. Spread across the week without a plan, small jobs fill your diary without filling your day with paid work.

They're still worth doing: they bring new customers, and some of them turn into bigger work later. The goal is to organise them, not to avoid them.

On Book, each type of job is a service with its own price and optional description, and you open slots for each at the length it takes. Make that length cover the whole visit. If a small job is booked into a slot that only covers the work, every job after it starts late.

Pick one or two days a week for small jobs, and assign each to a part of your area. One way to do it on your booking page is a separate service per area, for example "Small jobs — north side", each with slots only on that area's day. Customers pick their area and see only the days you're nearby. Repeat those slots every week on the chosen weekday, until an end date.

Slots of different services can overlap, and a booking on one doesn't block another service's slot at the same time. Keep small-job days separate from days you spend on larger projects, so a customer can't book a socket in the middle of a rewiring job across town.

Customers don't always know that a five-minute job still involves a trip and set-up. Show a clear price on each small-job service, and say in the description what it covers: the visit, a set amount of work, standard parts or not. If extra work comes up on site, say how you handle it: a quote before you go further, or a price per extra item. Book doesn't take payments, so also say how customers pay.

A clear minimum encourages customers to group their requests: three sockets and a light in one visit rather than four separate calls.

When a customer says "the lights in the kitchen keep tripping", nobody knows yet whether it's a faulty fitting or a damaged cable in a wall. Offer fault finding as its own service, with a fixed slot and price for the diagnosis. If the fix is quick and you have the parts, do it there. If not, agree on a separate visit and book it yourself from your calendar before you leave.

Old wiring, missing earths and walls that aren't what they seemed are part of the job. Leave a gap in the middle and at the end of each small-job day, so one overrunning visit doesn't push every appointment after it. If it does, call the next customer early. If you need to move a booking, reschedule it from your bookings list and let the customer know yourself, since Book doesn't email them when you change a booking.

Emergencies, like a total loss of power or a burning smell, still need a phone call. Say on your page that the booking page is for planned work.