Chartly
OneTrip - a website that helps home contractors ensure their first trip is the only visit a homeowner needs.
OneTrip: know what's broken before you roll the truck The problem For a small home-service business (an HVAC shop, a plumber, an electrician), the first visit is often wasted. The customer says "my AC isn't cooling", the technician drives out, finds a failed part they didn't bring, and has to come back. That second trip costs the business an hour or more of unpaid time and leaves the customer waiting another day. The information that would have prevented it — what the equipment is, what the label says, what's actually happening — is in the customer's house. Getting it today means phone tag, blurry photos sent to a personal phone number, and the same questions asked twice. What we built OneTrip is a web app with two sides. For the customer (no app, no account): the business texts them a private link. They open it on their phone, take or upload 1–5 photos of the problem with optional captions, and Claude looks at them. It reads labels and error codes, flags photos that are blurry or unrelated with a specific retake suggestion, and writes up to three short questions about what the photos can't show (timing, symptoms, access), with "I don't know" allowed. Answers save as they go, so a dropped connection or a reload doesn't lose anything. Customers who can't take a photo can describe the problem instead. Possible safety issues (gas, sparks, water near electrical) trigger general safety guidance, never repair instructions. For the business: after the customer submits, Claude writes a service brief: - what the customer reported, kept separate from what the photos show; - the equipment with its model and serial when they're legible; - possible causes, labeled as unconfirmed; - what to confirm on site. Every statement links back to the photo or answer it came from. The technician sees the brief, the photos with the AI's notes, and the customer's exact answers, then marks the request reviewed. Optional estimates: a business can upload its price list or past invoices. Claude extracts items with price ranges as suggestions the owner approves. After each intake, Claude drafts an estimate by choosing price-book items and quantities, but it never sees or writes prices: the server applies the business's own prices and calculates the totals. The owner edits, approves and sends it, and only then does the customer see a preliminary estimate on the same link, clearly marked as confirmed on site. Setting it up as a business 1. Sign up with an email, then enter the business name, trade, contact details and timezone. Tick "Prepare estimates" if you want quotes. 2. Optional: on the Price book page, upload a price list or invoices (PDF, CSV, text or a photo), then review and approve the suggested items. HVAC shops can start from a template. 3. Create a request with the customer's name and what you already know, then copy or share the link by text, WhatsApp or email. 4. When the customer submits, open the request to read the brief and, if enabled, review and send the estimate. Impact on the business's operations Today, a small HVAC or plumbing shop starts most jobs blind: the first visit is spent working out what's wrong, and if the fix needs a part that isn't on the truck, a second trip follows. OneTrip moves that diagnosis to before anyone leaves the shop. The technician sees the equipment, its model number and what the customer is reporting, so they can load the likely part and book the right amount of time. That turns more visits into one-trip fixes and frees the hours a return visit would have taken for another paying job. The office stops playing phone tag to gather details, because the customer answers once, on their own time, from their phone. And businesses that turn on estimates can send a realistic, owner-approved price range before the visit, so customers who decide to go ahead already know roughly what it will cost. Overall, intake becomes the step that plans the job instead of the first step of figuring it out. What's still rough - Questions don't adapt yet. There's one round of up to three; follow-up questions based on earlier answers aren't built. - Estimates can't be accepted or declined by the customer yet. Word documents must be saved as PDF before uploading. - Photo retention isn't enforced. The setting is saved, but photos aren't automatically deleted yet. - AI quality hasn't been formally evaluated. We've tested it on our own sample jobs, not a measured test set. AI-written questions and briefs can be wrong, which is why the brief is labeled as AI-written and every estimate needs owner approval. - The AI pieces need the Anthropic key. Without one, customers can still send photos and a description, but no questions, brief or estimate are generated. TEAMWORK IN README Abdulsaboor — UX, Design & Product Storytelling Lead. Led the user experience and visual direction: user journeys, wireframes and interface design. Shaped the problem statement and pitch narrative, guided final scope decisions, and connected the product experience to the demo story. Eddie — Customer Validation & Business Lead. Gathered feedback from contractors and event participants, tested the intake flow from the customer's side, and documented usability findings. Wrote and tested the owner-facing README, and co-presented the product's business value. Amogh & Rahul — Technical Co-Leads, Full-Stack Development & Architecture. Led the build across backend and frontend: the data model, contractor sign-up, job creation, shareable links and photo storage, plus the mobile intake form, camera capture, retake prompts and contractor dashboard. Owned integration and live deployment. Dhruv — Product Strategy, Development & Team Coordination Lead. Proposed the business problem and turned it into the product's features, development workflow and end-to-end customer journey. Structured the development process (SDLC), reviewed the experience against the intended solution, ran twice-hourl
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Texts the customer a private link where they upload photos of the problem and answer a few short questions, then gives the technician a one-screen brief with the equipment, likely causes, and what to bring. It can also draft an estimate from the owner's own price list that the owner approves before the customer sees it.
Best for: Small home-service shops such as HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors who lose time and money on a second visit because they arrived without the right part.
Summary by Claude from the team's submission and README. Find more free AI tools for your business →