Most roofing and plumbing offices run on a handful of tools: a phone, an inbox, a calendar, job software and maybe a spreadsheet. A lot of the day goes into moving the same details from one to another. Automation takes over that moving, so your office spends its time on customers instead of copy and paste. The hard part is not the tools. It is choosing what to automate first.
What makes a good first workflow
A good first workflow is small, dull and frequent. Look for work that has all three of these signs.
- It repeats. It happens many times a week, not twice a year.
- It follows rules. You could write the steps on one page: when this happens, do that. No judgment calls in the middle.
- It moves details between tools. Someone reads a form or an email and types the same name, address and job into another screen.
If a task needs a person to decide something each time, like pricing a complicated roof, leave it for later. Automation is good at the steps around a decision, not the decision itself.
Five good candidates
- 1New lead to your CRM, with a text back
A web form, a call or an email comes in. The details go into your CRM or job software once, the customer gets a short text saying you have their request, and the right person is told. No lead sits in an inbox overnight.
- 2Quote follow-up
You send a quote and then get busy. A follow-up goes out a few days later, and another after that, and both stop the moment the customer replies. You set the timing and the wording.
- 3Review requests after a job
When a job is marked done, the customer gets a short thank-you with a link to leave a Google review. Every customer gets it, the same way, not only the ones you happen to remember.
- 4Missed-call text back
When you can’t pick up, the caller gets a text within moments: sorry we missed you, what can we help with? Plenty of people will answer a text when they won’t leave a voicemail. The reply lands with your office.
- 5Invoice and payment reminders
The invoice and a payment link go out when the job closes. Polite reminders follow on a schedule you set, and overdue ones are flagged to a person instead of being forgotten.
Pick the one that hurts most today. For one office it is leads that wait overnight. For another it is quotes that never got a second touch. Start there, get it running well, then add the next.
How to measure it
You don’t need a study to know whether an automation works. You need your own numbers, before and after. Pick one or two things to measure and write them down before anything changes.
- Minutes spent per lead, from the first message to the job being in your software.
- How long a new lead waits for the first reply.
- How many quotes get a follow-up at all.
- How many invoices are still unpaid after the due date.
Here is an example of the math, with made-up numbers you would swap for your own. Say your office spends 10 minutes entering each new lead, and you get 40 leads a month. That is 400 minutes, or a little under 7 hours. If the automation brings it down to 2 minutes a lead, that is 80 minutes, and you get back more than 5 hours a month. Your numbers will be different. The point is to measure them, not guess.
What must happen when it fails
Every automation fails now and then. A tool goes down, a password changes, a form gets a new field. That is normal. What is not acceptable is failing quietly, so a lead disappears and nobody knows.
- A named person, like your office manager, is told when a step fails, with what failed and what to do.
- The lead or job is kept, not dropped. It waits in a queue until someone deals with it.
- Every run leaves a record your office can read, so anyone can see where a job stands.
- There is a simple way to switch it off and do the task by hand for a day.
Choosing an automation tool, in plain words
Automation tools all connect your apps so details move on their own. They differ in how they handle bigger jobs and how they charge.
- Some are the quickest to set up for simple jobs, and connect to a very long list of apps. They charge by how much runs, so the bill grows as you get busier.
- Some handle more involved steps, like branches and repeats, on a visual screen. They also charge by how much runs.
- Some can run on your own server. That keeps customer details in house, and the cost stays about the same in a busy month as in a quiet one. It takes a little more setup, and someone has to look after the server.
For a first workflow, the tool matters less than the plan. Pick the one that fits your volume and the apps you use, and make sure it is set up in your own account, not your vendor’s.
What about your job software?
Most roofing and plumbing offices live in their job software. Connections to Jobber, ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro are often possible, where your plan allows outside connections. Some plans don’t, so check yours before you count on it. If a connection can’t be made safely, a good builder tells you before you pay for anything.
Rnext Labs builds automations like these in your own accounts, with a named person told when anything fails. It starts with a free 30-minute call and a fixed price in writing.
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