Where’s that photo of the serial plate?
You know it was sent. You know it was in the WhatsApp group. Somewhere between someone’s football chat, a “running 10 mins late” and a thumbs up.
Then you have to find it again three weeks later when the customer rings about the boiler.
Most trades businesses I work with run a huge part of their day through WhatsApp. It works, until it doesn’t. Job information ends up on personal phones, scattered across groups, and completely disconnected from the job it belongs to.
ServiceM8 15 has given Staff Chat a big upgrade, and it’s worth a proper look if you’re currently using WhatsApp a lot in your business.
You can now have direct messages with individual colleagues and channels for teams or projects, all inside ServiceM8.
What makes it different from a WhatsApp group:
- Link a Job. Drop a Job reference into a channel message and anyone with access can tap it to open the Job card.
- Share a photo from the job. Choose Photo From Job to share an existing job photo, rather than downloading and resending it.
- Threads. Replies stay with the original message, so a question about one job doesn’t get buried under five other conversations.
- Public and private channels. Public channels are open for staff to find and join, like “Team Updates”. Private channels are invite-only, for example a big project or a management channel.
Here’s how to set up your first channel (Online Dashboard):
- Click the Chat speech-bubble icon in the header.
- Click Add Channel, then New Public Channel or New Private Channel.
- Give it a name and, if you like, a description, then click Create Channel.
- Add your team via the channel’s three-dot menu, then Members.
Your engineers will find it in the app under Activity, then the Messages speech-bubble icon at the top right.
One important point: when someone joins a private channel, they can only read messages sent after they joined. So if you’re moving a project into a channel, add everyone at the start.
You don’t need to switch everything over in one go. I’d start with one channel, maybe “Team Updates” or one busy project, and see how it feels after a fortnight.
I’m curious how many WhatsApp groups is your business running on right now?
~ Hazel
