PortaPottyBossPro Blog — Running a Porta Potty Business

Standard Procedures for a Portable Toilet Business: Writing Down How the Work Gets Done

Every portable toilet company has procedures. Most of them are just not written down. They live in the owner's head and in the habits of the first tech. That works until the company grows, a new tech does it differently, and a customer notices.

Why Write Them Down

You probably wrote down at least a service standard when you trained your last hire. If not, Training a New Porta Potty Service Tech in the First Two Weeks shows where procedures fit into training.

Written procedures do three things. They make training faster, because the new tech has something to read and check against. They make quality the same on every truck, because everyone is held to the same list. And they let the owner step back, because the work no longer depends on the owner being there to say how it is done.

Keep Them Short

A procedure nobody reads is worse than no procedure. Keep each one to a single page or less, written as steps. Use the words your techs use. Skip anything that is obvious to everyone. If a step has caused a problem before, include it, even if it seems small.

The Weekly Service Procedure

This is the most important one, because it happens the most. A typical version looks like this:

• Check the driver app card for unit type, quantity, unit numbers and placement notes
• Tap Start when you arrive
• Pump the tank completely
• Wash down the inside: seat, walls, floor and urinal
• Restock paper and sanitizer, and add fresh chemical and water
• Check the door, latch, vent and lock
• Make sure the unit is level and in the placement noted on the job
• Take a photo if anything is damaged, tipped or moved
• Tap Complete

Adjust it for your company. Hand wash stations, ADA units and restroom trailers each get their own short list.

Deliveries and Pickups

A delivery procedure covers checking the unit before it leaves the yard, confirming the placement notes, setting the unit level in the right spot, and taking a placement photo. A pickup procedure covers pumping before loading, checking for damage, confirming the unit numbers, and noting anything left behind. These two jobs are where most customer complaints start, so they are worth writing carefully.

In PortaPottyBossPro, the delivered and picked-up dates feed rental tracking. An accurate Complete on a pickup is what stops extra rental days from being billed after a unit is gone, and an accurate delivery date is what starts the clock.

Skipped Stops

Write down what a tech does when they cannot service a site: locked gate, units blocked by equipment, site closed. The procedure should say to tap Skip, write the reason, take a photo, and let the office know. The skipped stop stays on the Waiting List so the office can reschedule it. Without a written rule, skipped stops vanish into a tech's memory and come back as a complaint.

Customer Contact

Decide who talks to customers about what. Techs handle on-site questions and politely send everything else to the office. The office handles pricing, billing, schedule changes and complaints. The driver app sends automatic on-the-way and arrived texts, so techs do not need to text customers from their own phones. Two-way texting from the office keeps the conversation in one place.

Office Procedures

The office needs procedures too. A short daily list might include checking the Waiting List for due and overdue sites, building tomorrow's routes on the dispatch board, reviewing skipped stops, answering texts, and converting new form responses into clients. A weekly list covers past-due invoices and reports. Hiring Office Help for a Porta Potty Business, and What Each Role Does goes into office roles.

Review Them Twice a Year

Procedures go stale. Before construction season ramps up and again before the slow months, read them with your techs and update what has changed. Ask the techs what is missing. They know better than anyone.

Make the Procedures Visible

A binder in the office does not help a tech on a job site at 6am. Keep a printed copy of the service checklist in every truck. Put the site-specific parts, like where the units go and how to get through the gate, in the notes on each job so they show up on the driver app card. The general procedure says how to service a unit. The job notes say how to service this unit at this site.

When a tech breaks a procedure, start by asking whether the procedure was clear. Often the answer is no, and the fix is a better sentence, not a warning. Save the hard conversations for when the rule was clear and ignored.

For the tools that carry your procedures into the field, see the Porta Potty Business Software page.