Lead tracking
A simple status on every inquiry: new, quoted, waiting, won or lost. Knowing how many are sitting in "waiting" is often the most valuable number in the business.
CRM and quoting
CRM, Quotes and Customer Follow-Up
CRM is a three-letter word for something simple: one reliable record of every customer, every inquiry and every promise you made. Here is what that looks like in a working trade business.
What a CRM means in plain English
CRM stands for customer relationship management. In practice, for a contractor, it is the place where you can answer four questions without calling anyone:
- Who is this customer and what have we done for them before?
- What did we quote, when, and for how much?
- What did we promise to do next, and by when?
- Where is this job up to right now?
If a shared spreadsheet answers all four honestly, you do not urgently need software. Most businesses find it stops working somewhere between the second employee and the fiftieth open estimate.
The customer journey, one step at a time
Every system you consider should make one of these six steps easier. If it does not, it is adding admin rather than removing it.
- 1
New inquiry
Call, form or referral captured in one place.
- 2
Estimate
Priced and sent with clear scope and validity.
- 3
Follow-up
A planned reminder, not a hopeful memory.
- 4
Booked job
Scheduled, assigned and confirmed with the customer.
- 5
Completed job
Notes, photos and invoice attached to the record.
- 6
Review or referral
Asked for while the work is still fresh.
Read as a flow: new inquiry to estimate to follow-up to booked job to completed job to review or referral. Work usually falls out of the process between the estimate and the follow-up.
The parts you are actually buying
Customer records
Address, contact details, equipment installed, past work, photos and notes. Especially valuable for service and maintenance work where you return to the same property.
Estimates and quote creation
Reusable line items and templates so a standard job takes minutes to price. Consistency also makes it possible to see which types of work are actually profitable.
PDF proposals
A tidy document with scope, exclusions, options, price and validity date. Some systems add online acceptance and a signature, which removes a round of phone tag.
Follow-up reminders
An automatic prompt so no estimate goes quiet by accident. A simple two-touch follow-up is better than an elaborate sequence you abandon after a month.
Scheduling and handover
Once a job is won, the crew needs the address, access details, scope, materials and any site notes. Handover is where most re-visits and callbacks are created.
Comparisons are being developed
We are working on independent, plain-English comparisons of CRM, estimating and job management systems for trade businesses. Until they are ready, we are not naming or ranking products, and we do not publish rankings we have not done the work to justify.