From lead to paid: the full life of a job
It is easy to improve a service business one department at a time and still be slow overall. The waste usually sits in the handovers — the moment a job passes from the phone to the diary, from the diary to the van, from the van to the invoice.
So follow a single job the whole way, and look at each handover rather than each department.
1. The enquiry
Somebody rings, messages or fills in a form. Two things must happen immediately: the enquiry is recorded with a source, and somebody owns it. An enquiry with no owner is a lead that quietly dies.
- Caller recognised, or created as a new record on the spot
- Source captured so you know which marketing produced it
- Availability visible while the caller is still on the line
2. The quote
Send it the same day, in writing, with a validity period. Quotes sent within hours win noticeably more work than quotes sent within days, because most customers buy from whoever responds first with a clear number.
3. The booking
Confirm in writing with a real time window, then remind the day before. Almost every no-show is an information failure rather than a customer who changed their mind.
For larger work, a deposit at this point filters out the enquiries that were never going to proceed.
4. The visit
The engineer needs the history, the access notes and the parts before setting off. On site, the job sheet, photos, certificate and signature should all be captured on the phone while the customer is standing there — retrospective paperwork is always worse paperwork.
- Extra work agreed and signed for as a variation, not a verbal promise
- Parts used recorded against the job and off the van stock
- Completion status updated the moment the work is done
Want to see what this looks like on your own jobs?
5. The invoice
It should be a confirmation of what the job record already says, produced before the engineer leaves. Every day between completion and invoice is a day added to the time before you are paid, and it is entirely self-inflicted.
6. The payment
Card on the doorstep, or a pay-now link that works on a phone. After that, reminders on a schedule you set once, in wording you would be happy to read yourself.
7. The follow-up
Ask for the review while the job is fresh, and diarise the next service or inspection. One completed job should always create the seed of the next one — that is the difference between a busy business and a growing one.
Frequently asked questions
- Which handover is usually worst?
- Completion to invoice. The work is done, the pressure is off, and the paperwork waits for an evening that never comes. It is also the handover with the most direct effect on cash.
- How do I find the weak point in my own process?
- Time-stamp one week of jobs at each stage — enquiry, quote sent, booked, completed, invoiced, paid. The longest unexplained gap is where to start.
- Does one system for all of this really matter?
- It matters because handovers between systems require a human to copy something, and that is where information and money get lost.