Keep customers informed without the phone tag
Customer silence is the #1 reason jobs feel like they're going badly even when they aren't. This SOP takes you through three tools that fix that in under 10 minutes a week per job.
Before you start
Have at least one live job with a check-in and a couple of photos already captured. If you don't, run the Run your first job SOP first — it takes 10 minutes.
Step-by-step
- 1
Send a first AI-drafted update
Open a live job → Timeline → Update customer. Keystone summarises what's happened since the last update using photos, check-ins and notes.
Read it back. Check names, dates, claims and the next action before sending. Attach the best 1-2 photos. AI drafts are suggestions and are never sent automatically.
Tip: it's fine — encouraged — to send short, factual updates. "Foundations poured, drying overnight" is more reassuring than a long paragraph.
- 2
Issue a proposal when a decision needs more than a message
For a quoted project, use Commercial journey → Proposal rather than attaching a loose PDF to an email. Review the draft, then issue the customer a private, expiring link through the established email route.
The customer can read the frozen proposal, ask a question, accept it or send feedback. Keystone logs the decision on the timeline and alerts the office, so the next call or revision is visible in Priorities.
- 3
Share the customer portal link
Every job gets a private customer portal at a unique URL. The customer sees customer-ready photos, updates, handover reports, sign-off requests and only the documents you've deliberately shared — no login, no app to install.
On the job screen, open Customer portal → Preview first, then use Send invite to send a branded private email, or copy the link into your own message. Use the eye controls in Photos, Files and Reports to decide what the customer can see. Team chat, internal notes, installer information and commercial controls never appear in the portal.
The portal now shows the current programme, latest update time and a customer-safe change history. Publishing a new photo, document or report can also notify the customer automatically. For sensitive projects, turn on email verification in the portal controls before sharing the link.
- 4
Set up automatic review requests
Once → connect Google Business Profile under Integrations. It takes ~2 minutes and only needs to be done once per workspace.
From then on, every time you mark a job Complete, Keystone offers to send a branded review request the moment the customer is likely to say something positive (immediately after sign-off).
Treat the review request as a follow-up after the customer has seen the finished result and any concern is resolved. The request remains an Admin-facing workflow; it is not a substitute for the completion record.
- 5
Reply to inbound messages in one place
If you've connected customer communication or social channels, incoming customer messages land in Business Hub → Inbox alongside the job they're about. Reply from Keystone and the message goes back through the original channel. Email is the standard customer route; SMS requires the active workspace add-on and customer opt-in state.