How to stop 'Where are you?' calls for good

You're on the M62, twenty minutes from the job, and the phone goes. It's the customer. "Just checking you're still coming?" You can't answer safely, so you let it ring. Two minutes later, a text. Then a voicemail. By the time you pull up, they're mildly annoyed and you're on the back foot before you've even rung the bell.

If you're a plumber, electrician, cleaner or handyman, you've lived this. The good news: "Where are you?" calls are one of the easiest problems in the trade to fix. It's not about working harder — it's about getting customer communication for tradespeople down to a simple, repeatable system.

The real cost of ETA phone calls

Each individual call feels small. Added up, they're anything but.

They interrupt you at the worst moments. The calls come when you're driving between jobs or elbow-deep in the current one. Answering while driving is dangerous and, hands-free or not, a distraction. Not answering means missed calls stacking up and a customer who feels ignored either way.

They make you look less professional than you are. You might be a brilliant electrician, but if the customer's only experience of your communication is silence followed by a knock on the door, that's what they remember. The trades have a reputation problem with timekeeping — fair or not — and every unexplained wait feeds it.

They leave customers anxious. Most people booking a call-out have rearranged their day for it. They've taken the morning off, or they're watching the clock before the school run. When they hear nothing, they don't assume you're five minutes away. They assume you're not coming. That anxiety is what drives the calls in the first place.

They snowball. One customer chasing you delays the current job, which pushes the next appointment later, which triggers the next "Where are you?" call. The chasing causes the lateness it's worried about.

What customers actually want

Here's the thing: customers don't actually want to phone you. Nobody enjoys chasing a tradesperson. What they want is very simple — to know you're coming, without having to ask.

That breaks down into three things:

1. Confirmation the job is real. A message the day before or that morning saying "you're booked in, I'll be with you between X and Y."
2. A heads-up when you're on the way. Not a precise time — just "I've left, I'll be about 40 minutes."
3. A quick word if things change. Running an hour late is forgivable. Running an hour late in silence is not.

Notice what's missing from that list: perfection. Customers don't expect you to arrive to the minute. They expect to be kept in the loop. Meet that expectation and the phone stops ringing.

Why WhatsApp beats a phone call in the UK

If you're going to send updates, send them where people actually look. In the UK, that's WhatsApp: Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report found that 90% of UK online adults use WhatsApp — 44.2 million people — and 76% use it daily.

A message also beats a call on practical grounds:

• It doesn't need an answer. The customer reads it when they glance at their phone. No phone tag, no voicemail.
• It's a written record. "I told you I'd be there between 10 and 12" is much easier when it's in the chat history.
• It takes seconds. A call means small talk, questions, maybe a renegotiation of the whole appointment. A message is send-and-drive.
• It doesn't interrupt them either. Plenty of your customers are at work too. A message respects their time the way you'd want them to respect yours.

A plain text message still works for the handful of people who aren't on WhatsApp — the point is a message they'll actually see, not a call they have to catch.

A simple ETA system you can start today

You don't need any software to fix most of this. You need three messages, sent at three moments, every time. Save them as templates on your phone and fill in the blanks.

1. The night before (or morning of):

Hi Sarah, it's Dave from Dave's Plumbing. Just confirming I'm booked in with you tomorrow to look at the boiler. I'll be with you between 9 and 11am. See you then.

2. When you set off:

Morning Sarah — I'm just leaving my last job now. Should be with you in about 40 minutes.

3. If anything changes:

Sarah, quick heads-up — the job before yours has run over. I'm now looking at closer to 12. Sorry about that, I'll message again when I'm on my way.

That's it. Three templates, thirty seconds a day. The rules that make it work:

• Send the "on my way" message every single time, even for the customer who never chases. Consistency is what builds the reputation.
• Give a window, not a minute. "About 40 minutes" survives traffic; "10:15" doesn't.
• Message the moment you know you're late — not when you were due. Bad news early beats bad news late.
• Send it before you pull off the drive, never while driving.

Say you're a plumber in Leeds doing five call-outs a day. That's five "on my way" messages — under three minutes of typing — in exchange for a day where nobody rings to chase you.

Where a live ETA link takes it further

The template system has one gap: the moment you press send, your message starts going stale. "About 40 minutes" was true when you left. Then there's roadworks on the ring road, and the customer is back to wondering — and eventually, back to calling.

That's what a live ETA link solves. Instead of a static message, the customer gets a link — over WhatsApp — that opens a page showing when you'll actually arrive, kept up to date while you're on the way. Nothing for them to install; it feels like tracking a delivery. They can see the traffic delay for themselves, so there's nothing to ask about.

It also quietly changes how you come across. A plumber who sends a live tracking link looks like an outfit that has its act together — the kind of impression that usually costs a lot more than one tap.

You can get 90% of the benefit today with the three templates above. The live link closes the last 10%: the updates keep themselves accurate, and you never have to think about it mid-drive.

Stop the calls, keep the customers

"Where are you?" calls aren't a fact of life in the trades — they're a symptom of customers being left in the dark, and they disappear the moment you keep people informed by default. Start with the three templates today.

If you'd rather have it handled in one tap, OnMyWay sends your client a live ETA tracking link over WhatsApp the moment you tap "On My Way" — and asks for a Google review when the job's done. There's a 14-day free trial, no card required.