Mail-in repairs end to end

Mail-in turns BenchKey into a depot operation: customers anywhere submit a form, ship their device, watch progress in the portal, and get it shipped back, all tracked on one ticket. The full sales pitch lives at benchkey.com/mail-in; this page is the how-to.

The public mail-in form, filled out the way a remote customer would. Recorded from the real app with demo data.

How an order flows

1. Customer submits the public form, your branded intake page with the questions and service tiers you configured. The ticket exists before the box ships.
2. They ship it in, with their own label or a prepaid label you generate. Inbound tracking lives on the ticket, so “did it arrive?” answers itself.
3. You diagnose and quote, the estimate goes to the portal for a recorded approval. See Estimates & approvals.
4. Repair, invoice, pay, payment by portal link, card on file, or financing.
5. Ship it back, generate the return label from the ticket; outbound tracking posts to the portal and the customer gets the tracking number automatically.

Configure the intake form

Settings → Mail-In → Form builder is a drag-and-drop builder:

• Add your own questions, dropdowns, and conditional sections (answer-dependent follow-ups, “what kind of device?” can change the questions that follow).
• Define service tiers with names, pricing, and turnaround promises, rush options pay for the bench.
• Set legal terms the customer agrees to at submission, they are recorded with the order.

Shipping labels

Connect a carrier in Settings → Integrations & Shipping and generate inbound or return labels straight from the ticket. Tracking numbers attach to the ticket and surface in the portal. Manual tracking entry works too, for labels bought elsewhere.

Follow-ups that run themselves

Settings → Mail-In → Follow-up timeline drives the slow-moving cases: the customer who never shipped the box, the approved quote that never paid. Day-based nudges go out automatically and stop the moment the customer acts.

The portal for mail-in customers

Mail-in tickets get a longer portal timeline that includes the shipping stages (label created, in transit, delivered back). Customers watch the whole journey instead of emailing for updates. See Customer portal.