Small tiling repairs: grouping short visits into one day

Group small repairs on set days instead of fitting them in wherever a customer asks. Choose one day a week, or a half-day, for repair visits, open short slots only on that day, and let customers book them online. Ask for a photo and whether they have spare tiles before you come. Your big jobs keep their full days, and the small ones stop turning into a phone call, a quote and a half-empty afternoon each.

A cracked floor tile, a mouldy shower seal, a few loose wall tiles, grout that has crumbled in a kitchen: each one is under two hours of work. But each also means a phone call, a trip, parking, tools unloaded and loaded back, and sometimes a second trip because the replacement tile isn't the right one. Taken one at a time in the middle of the week, they break up days you'd rather give to a bathroom or a floor.

Customers still need them done, and they'll remember who came. A small repair done well today can bring the full bathroom next year. The goal isn't to refuse them, but to take them in a way that doesn't cost you a day.

On Book, each service has a name, a price and an optional description shown on your public page. Each slot belongs to one service, with its own start and end. Customers pick a service, then a free slot. With one place per slot, a booked slot is full and disappears from your page.

Lengths and prices are examples: set your own. In each description, say what's included (labour, standard grout or silicone) and what isn't (tiles, which the customer usually supplies for a match). For anything unclear, the assessment visit lets you see the problem before committing to a price.

Pick the day that disturbs your big jobs least: a Friday, or a day you'd lose anyway while a screed dries on another site. Create short repair slots on that day only, with travel time between them, and repeat them each week until a date. When a multi-day job needs that day, remove the repair slots of that week before anyone books them.

If you work over a wide area, one option is to alternate: repair slots in one part of your area on the first and third Friday, another part on the others. Book repeats slots weekly on the weekdays you choose, not every other week, so create the alternating days by hand for the weeks ahead. Say in each service description which areas each day covers.

The public booking form asks for first name, last name, email and phone, plus an optional note that you read in your new-booking email. If the photo shows a bigger problem than the booked service, such as water behind the tiles, call the customer and move the booking to an assessment visit or a longer slot from your bookings list.

Customers who book by phone can still be added: pick a free repair slot in your calendar and enter their name; email and phone are optional, and with the email they get a confirmation. Customers can't move bookings online; they contact you, and you reschedule or cancel from your list, then confirm the change yourself, since Book doesn't email them about it. Book doesn't take payments, so say in the description how you're paid on the day.

Book costs €5/month, everything included: unlimited services and bookings, no commission, no contract.