What goes in a good home watch report

The report is the only part of your service the customer sees. Here's what to put in it, what to leave out, and why photographs of nothing are worth sending.

Your customer is fifteen hundred miles away. Everything they believe about your service, they believe because of what lands in their inbox after a visit.

Send it the same day

A report that arrives three days later reads as an afterthought, whatever it says. Same-day is the difference between "somebody is watching my house" and "somebody eventually got round to my house".

Photograph the nothing

It feels strange to send a picture of a dry floor and an intact window. Send it anyway. Photographs of nothing wrong are the proof that you were there and looked properly, and they are the record you will be glad of if there is ever a dispute about when a problem started.

Say what you did, not what you noticed

"Checked all doors and windows — all secure" is worth more than "all looked fine". The first says what you did. The second could have been written from the driveway.

Flag small things early and plainly

A slightly low pool level, a bulb out, a branch down. Report them without alarm and say what you did about it. Owners forgive small problems; they do not forgive finding out about them in month four.

Keep every report

Reports are your record. When an insurer, a buyer or an owner asks what the house looked like on a date, a dated, photographed history is the difference between a clear answer and your memory.