Why it matters
The firm that replies first usually gets the job. When enquiries sit in an inbox, a Facebook page and someone’s phone, the reply waits until the office catches up. One place for every enquiry is what makes a fast first reply possible.
It also gives you a number you can count. Once every enquiry lands in the same place with a time stamp, you can see how long the first reply takes and how many enquiries never got one.
How it works
- An enquiry arrives from the website form, the shared inbox, a text or Facebook Messenger.
- AI reads the message and pulls out the name, address, job type and how urgent it sounds.
- A job or lead is created in your job system, checked against existing customers so it isn’t doubled up.
- The customer gets a short acknowledgement in your wording, and the office sees the new job straight away.
Where AI is used, and where it isn’t
- AI: Reading free-text messages and pulling out the customer details, job type and urgency. People write enquiries every way imaginable, so this is where AI earns its place.
- Plain rules: Creating the job, the duplicate check, who it is assigned to and the acknowledgement message. Those follow fixed rules you agree up front.
You approve anything a customer sees before the flow goes live, and the flow runs in your own accounts.
What changes day to day
The office opens the job system in the morning and the overnight enquiries are already there as jobs, with the address and job type filled in. Nobody copies details out of an email any more. Anything the flow wasn’t sure about is marked for a quick check rather than guessed.
This is for you if
- Enquiries live in three or four places and someone retypes them.
- You have found an enquiry a week later that nobody answered.
- You can’t say how long it takes your team to reply.
Worth knowing
- Texts need a number that can forward messages, such as a ServiceM8 or Twilio number. A personal mobile can’t be connected.
- The acknowledgement should be honest about when you will reply. It is a receipt, not a promise of a time slot.
- If your job types are a mess in the job system, tidy them first. The flow can only file into categories that exist.
This is an illustrative example. It describes a flow we would build, not a client’s results. If you go ahead, we measure your own before and after.