A CRM for trades and service businesses: from the first enquiry to the finished job

The enquiry

Every enquiry should become a record the moment it arrives, whether it came from the website, a phone call, a message or a referral. The record needs the person's name and contact details, what they asked for, where the job is, and how they found you.

Most important of all, every new enquiry needs an owner and a next action with a date. An enquiry nobody owns is the one that goes cold.

Measure and quote

Many trades need a site visit before a quote. The CRM can hold the booking for the visit, the measurements, photos and notes, and the details that change the quote, such as access, floor type or the state of the existing work.

When the quote is sent, record the date it was sent and set a reminder to follow up. A quote with no reminder is easy to forget.

Booking the job

When a customer says yes, the enquiry becomes a job. The details should carry across without being typed again: the address, the agreed scope, the quote and any special notes. Then record the booking date, who is doing the work and what materials are needed.

If the customer has to confirm something or pay a deposit first, make that a visible step, so nobody turns up to a job that is not ready.

The handover to the installers

The handover is where many service businesses lose information. The person who sold the job knows things the crew does not: what the customer cares about, where the access is tricky, what was promised.

Decide what the crew must receive for every job, and make it a standard part of the job record. A good handover note is short and has the same parts each time: the address and contact, the scope, the measurements, the materials, the access notes and anything the customer asked for.

After the job

When the work is finished, the record should show it: the finish date, any extra work, and any problem found. Then the follow-up steps begin. These can include a thank-you message, a request for a review, a check after a few weeks, and a reminder for any later service.

If your business invoices through accounting software, decide how the job record and the invoice stay linked.

What to record at each step

• Enquiry: source, contact, request, owner, next action and date.
• Measure and quote: visit date, measurements, photos, quote sent, reminder date.
• Booking: agreed scope, work date, crew, materials, deposit or approval status.
• Handover: the standard handover note, with access and customer notes.
• After the job: finish date, extra work, follow-up tasks, review request.

What the owner sees each morning

The real test of the system is the first ten minutes of the day. The owner should be able to open one screen and see:

• new enquiries with nobody assigned;
• quotes sent that have had no reply and need a follow-up;
• jobs booked for the week and anything still missing for them;
• jobs finished that are waiting for an invoice or a follow-up;
• tasks that are overdue, and who holds them.

Who needs to see what

Not everyone in the business should see the same screen. The office needs the full record. A crew member in the field may only need the address, the scope and the access notes for today's job. An owner needs the overview.

Decide these views early. When each person sees only what helps them do the next task, the system stays quick to use, and private details such as pricing notes are kept to the people who need them.

Handling changes and problems

Real jobs change. A customer moves the date, a material arrives late, or extra work is found once the crew is on site. The record should make these changes easy to add and easy to see, so the office and the crew are always working from the same version.

Give problems their own place in the record too. When a fault is logged with a photo and a note, it is much easier to fix it, to answer the customer, and to learn what to check next time.

Keep it simple at the start

You do not need every feature on day one. If you decide to build, CRM development for service businesses works best when it begins with one step. Start with the step where you lose the most: often the gap between the quote and the booked job, or the handover to the crew. Get that step working, let the team use it, and add the next step when the first one is stable.