Responding to a Service Request through Email
Each time your clients dispatch non-maintenance work orders to your company, you get email notifications. From an email, you can accept or decline a service request as well as view work order details, location info, and check-in instructions.
Email Sections
The email about a new service request contains the following sections:
1️⃣ New Service Request: Contains key details about the work order dispatched to your company:
- Tracking number
- Caller name
- Client
- Trade
- Category
- Priority
- Scheduled date
- NTE
From this section, you can accept or decline the work order.
To view the service request on the Work Orders List, do one of the following:
- Click the tracking number at the top of the email.
or - Click View Work Order under Work Order Details.
2️⃣ Work Order Details: Shows the purchase order number, tracking number, and description of the work order. You may also see the customer area, asset, problem type, and problem — depending on how the client submitted the request.
3️⃣ Location Details: Provides details about the location where you need to service the request: store ID, name, address, phone number, and fax. You can also see the client name here. Learn more about the location details in Managing Locations.
📍 To view the location on the map, click the address.
📞 To call the location, click the phone number.
4️⃣ Check-In Instructions: Contains links to download the ServiceChannel Provider mobile app from the App Store and Google Play. Here, you can also find out how to use the automated response system (IVR) to check-in/out and accept or decline work orders.
Pay attention to your PIN number required to access ServiceChannel Provider and the automated response system. Find out more about using ServiceChannel Provider with a PIN.
5️⃣ Location Notes: Lists notes with additional information about the location the WO was submitted for. This may be any details that your client provided, for example, district or region manager name, their emails or contact phone numbers, and other relevant info. This section is not displayed if your client has not added any location notes.
You can view a simplified plain version of the email in HTM format by clicking the email attachment. When using a mobile device, download the file, and open it in the desired app. This may be useful if your Internet connection is slow, and you fail to open the full email version that takes longer to load.
Accepting and Declining Work Orders via Email
You can accept or decline a work order via email. Note that service requests you have not responded to may be forwarded to another provider.
Accepting Maintenance Work Orders
Planned Maintenance (PM) Work Orders are sent to your email as a bulk work order summary. So you cannot accept or decline them directly via email.
To accept/decline a PM work order, you need to manually change the work order status. The status change is carried out via adding a note. Click View Work Orders from the email to go to the Work Orders List.
The email attachment contains the details of the PM work orders dispatched to you. Follow the instructions in the email to import the .txt file to an .xlsx file.
Accepting a Work Order
By accepting a work order, you confirm that you will work on the request.
- Click Accept in the email. You are prompted to log in to Provider Automation if you are not logged in.
- On the page listing the key details of the work order, click I Accept Service Request to confirm you will work on the request.
You see a confirmation that the work order was accepted.
---OR---
Reply Yes, OK, or Accept to the email.
Ensure the original message is included in the reply.
The work order status changes to In Progress/Dispatch Confirmed.
Declining a Work Order
To inform the client that you cannot work on a service request for any reason, reject the work order.
- Click Decline in the email. You are prompted to log in to Provider Automation if you are not logged in.
- On the page showing essential work order info, click I Decline Service Request to inform the client you will not service the request.
You see a confirmation that the work order was declined.
---OR---
- Reply No or Decline to the email.
(Optional) Include any additional information explaining the decline after No or Decline.
Ensure the original message is included in the reply.
The client gets notified that you declined to work on the request. The work order status changes to Open/Declined.
