A light duty towing website that turns a search into a job

What a light duty towing page should name

Light duty means the vehicles most people drive: sedans, hatchbacks, crossovers, SUVs, minivans and light pickups. Say that in those words, because a caller on a shoulder is matching your page against the car in front of them, not against a weight class. If you also move vans with a load, lifted trucks or anything on dual rear wheels, say where your line is.

Then name how you move them. Some callers know the word flatbed and want it, some have been told never to let a wheel-lift touch their all-wheel-drive car, and some only want to know whether you will take the car to their own mechanic instead of yours.

• Cars, crossovers, SUVs, minivans and light pickups, in the words drivers use
• Whether you run a wheel-lift, a flatbed or both
• The towns and highways you cover, and where your coverage ends
• Whether you will take the car to any shop, a dealer or a home address
• Real photos of your own trucks, not stock images

Wheel-lift, flatbed or dollies: tell callers which you carry

A wheel-lift raises one end of the car and lets the other two wheels roll, which is quick and works in tight lots for many front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive cars. A flatbed carries the whole car, which suits all-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive cars, low cars and anything that will not roll or steer. Some operators also carry dollies so a wheel-lift can move a car with its driven wheels off the ground.

Do not promise a method you cannot supply. A page that says all-wheel-drive cars always ride on a bed only works if a bed is free, so if you run one flatbed, say that a wait is possible. The request form asks for drive type for exactly this reason, and you can record each truck as a wheel-lift or a flatbed.

Questions light duty callers ask before you roll

The same handful of questions comes up on almost every call. A page that answers them saves some calls and shortens the rest, as long as the answers are in your own words and true.

• How long until you get here, and will I be told if that changes?
• Can you take it to my mechanic, a dealer or my house, or only to your yard?
• My car is all-wheel drive. Is that a problem?
• It is in a parking garage or a tight driveway. Can you reach it?
• Can I ride along, and what do I need to hand over?
• How is the price worked out, and how do I pay?

Running a small light duty fleet from one board

A request from your site lands as a job, you put a quote and an arrival time on it, and one tap assigns a truck. The driver gets the job as a text with a link to the customer, the vehicle, the pickup and navigation, so nothing needs installing.

If you have recorded each truck as a wheel-lift or a flatbed, the assignment screen raises a hint when a pairing looks wrong, such as an all-wheel-drive car headed for a wheel-lift. It is only a hint, and you can still assign the truck, because you know things the form does not. You can publish a starting price for a service or keep prices to the phone, and either way the quote and arrival time you give are stamped into the job.

Honest limits belong on the page

If you do not haul box trucks, buses or anything heavy, say so and point those callers to a heavy-duty company you trust. A short, true list of what you do not do earns more calls than a page that claims everything.

Motor club calls still reach you the way they do today. You can log one in a few taps with who is paying and their dispatch number, but there is no digital dispatch connection to any club and no impound or lien processing.

Frequently asked questions

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