28 July 2026 · 5 min read
Stop the 'is it ready?' calls: automating repair status updates
Constant "is it ready?" calls interrupt every repair in progress. Here is how automatic SMS status updates cut the interruptions, keep customers happy, and give you your afternoon back.
Ask any repair shop owner what breaks their concentration most, and you'll hear the same answer: the phone. Specifically, the "is it ready yet?" call. Each one pulls you off the bench mid-repair, and a busy shop can field fifteen or twenty of them a week.
The frustrating part is that customers are not being difficult. They just have no way of knowing where their repair is — so they ring to find out. Remove the uncertainty, and the calls stop.
Why the calls happen
A customer drops off a cracked phone and hears "should be ready tomorrow." Tomorrow comes and they've heard nothing. Is it done? Did the part arrive? Was there a problem? The only way to find out is to call. Multiply that by every repair on your bench and you have a constant stream of interruptions — none of which move a single repair forward.
The fix: automatic status texts
The solution is to close the information gap before the customer feels it. When a repair's status changes — especially when it's marked ready — the customer gets a text automatically. No one has to remember to send it; it happens the moment you update the job.
Shops that switch this on almost always report the same thing: the "is it ready?" calls quietly disappear. Customers feel looked after, and the bench gets left alone.
What a good update looks like
A useful status text has three things: who it's from (your shop name, so it isn't ignored as spam), what it's about (their device), and what to do next. For a "ready" message that's usually "come and collect." Keep it short, clear, and branded as you.
Back it with a tracking page
Even better than a single text is a link the customer can check any time — a simple tracking page showing their repair's status, branded with your shop's name and colours. It turns "I wonder if it's done" into a five-second glance, and it's your customer experience, not a generic one.
This is core to how Rivet works: mark a repair ready, and the customer is texted automatically with a link to their own branded tracking page. If you're setting up the systems behind a calmer shop, it pairs well with the rest of the repair shop systems we cover.