JunkBossPro Blog — Property Managers & Commercial

Recurring Monthly Pickups for Commercial Junk Clients: Keeping the Regular Haul on the Schedule

Some commercial clients do not have one big job. They have a steady trickle. The apartment complex where residents leave couches by the dumpster enclosure every week. The store whose back room fills with broken fixtures. The property manager whose maintenance shop collects old appliances and carpet. For them, a regular monthly pickup is easier than calling you every time, and for you it is work you can count on.

Off-Hours, On a Schedule

Many regular pickups happen early or late, as covered in After-Hours and Weekend Commercial Junk Jobs: Scheduling Around Business Hours. Whatever the time of day, the goal here is the same: the client should never have to remember to call. The pickup just happens.

Which Clients Want a Regular Pickup

Good candidates for a monthly haul:

• Apartment complexes. Bulk items left at the dumpster area, common-area cleanups, and the maintenance shop's pile of old appliances.
• Retail stores. Back-room fixtures, broken displays, old signage.
• Offices. Broken chairs and old equipment that pile up in a storage room.
• Contractors. A yard or shop that collects scrap between jobs.
• Landlords. A garage or storage unit where they collect what tenants leave.

If a client has called you three months in a row, ask whether a set day each month would help. Most say yes.

Pick a Day and Stick to It

A regular pickup works best on a regular day, like the first Tuesday of each month or the last Friday. The client knows when to expect the truck, and the property's staff learn to have the pile ready. Put the day in the access notes on the address, along with where the pile will be: “Monthly pickup, first Tuesday. Pile is behind the maintenance shop, Building D.”

Pick a day that fits your own routes too. If your cleanout truck is already on that side of town every Tuesday, the monthly pickup costs you almost nothing in drive time.

Book the Next One When This One Is Done

The simplest habit that keeps a recurring pickup from falling through the cracks: when the crew taps Complete on this month's pickup, the office puts next month's on the schedule. It takes a minute, and it means the job is already on the dispatch board when next month comes around.

If the client signs up for the regular service through your website sign-up form or the customer app, they can pick the service and pricing you have set up, and their card is captured at sign-up. One click converts a website sign-up into a client.

Route It With Everything Else

A monthly pickup is just a job on the schedule. It shows on the dispatch board by day and truck, and the office can auto-route it Closest First or Furthest First with the other stops, or set it by hand. Because the client's address is on the map, the office can see when a single-item pickup or a homeowner cleanout lands nearby on the Waiting List and put them on the same truck.

The crew sees the regular pickup on the phone with the load estimate, what is usually going and the access notes. Past notes from earlier months show too, like “Pile was bigger in summer, plan for a 1/2 load.”

Price It So Nobody Has to Think

Regular pickups vary in size. Some haulers price them by the truck load each time, so a 1/4 load month costs less than a 1/2 load month. Others set up a flat monthly service on their service list with a load included and charge extra above it. Both work. The truck load is recorded on every job, so either way the invoice shows what was hauled. If a load runs heavy, the dump fee overage is added from the ticket.

Whatever you choose, put it in writing when the client agrees to the regular day.

One Statement at the End of the Month

Regular commercial clients are usually set to Monthly. The monthly pickup shows on the monthly statement next to any other work you did for them that month, each line labeled with its address. A management company with a monthly haul at three complexes gets one statement showing all three, plus any trash-outs in between. That is covered in One Monthly Statement for Every Address: Billing Property Managers for Junk Removal.

Check In Now and Then

Regular work can go stale without anyone noticing. Every few months, look at the pickups. If the loads have been tiny for a while, ask the client whether every other month would suit them better. If they keep growing, suggest a second day. A client who sees you adjusting the service to fit them stays a client.

For everything else JunkBossPro does for commercial accounts, visit the commercial junk removal software page.