Following up leads in a service company: phases, agreements per phase and a weekly review

Where requests get lost

A service company receives its requests through many channels, and each channel has its own way of losing one:

• Phone. Whoever answers writes a name and a number on a scrap of paper, which is still lying on the desk on Monday.
• Email and website. The request lands in info@, or in the mailbox of a colleague who is on leave.
• Existing customers. During a maintenance visit, a customer asks the technician whether they could also look at the air conditioning. The technician promises to pass it on and forgets.
• After the technical visit. Someone went to take measurements, but nobody writes the quote.

Each time, the same things are missing: an owner, a phase and a date for the next step. What happens after the quote has gone out is explained in following up a quote. This article covers everything that comes before.

What is a lead, and what does following up leads mean?

A lead is a request for new work, as long as there is no agreement yet: a new installation, a replacement, a maintenance contract or a first repair for a new customer. A breakdown at a customer with a maintenance contract is not a lead: it becomes an intervention straight away.

Following up leads means that every request has a phase, an owner and a next step with a date at all times, until it is won or lost.

A warm lead is someone who contacted you themselves, or an existing customer asking for something new. A service company almost always works with warm leads. They do cool down quickly, though: someone who waits a week for a phone call will ring another company in the meantime.

The phases, with a rule for each phase

A phase only makes sense if everyone understands it the same way. Agree when a lead is in a phase, who follows it up and by when. The deadlines are examples.

Three rules keep the phases honest:

1. No lead without a next step. Whoever moves a lead sets the next step straight away, with a date.
2. One owner per lead. That may be someone different in each phase, but it is always a named person.
3. Only move on when the phase is finished. A quote that is almost ready is not yet in the Quote phase.

How to build the quote itself is explained in writing a quote.

Note the source of every lead

At the first contact, ask how the customer found you, and choose from a fixed list: phone, email, website, existing customer, technician on site, referral. You can count a fixed list; you cannot count free text. After a few months you see which source brings in won work and where requests get stuck.

Also note what you need to move forward: the contact person and their mobile phone number, the address of the work, the type of installation, the desired timing and who decides. In an apartment building, it is often the general meeting of co-owners that decides, and that sets the timing of the whole follow-up. If requests come in by email, first arrange who picks up the email: see a shared inbox for service requests.

What do you do with a lost lead?

• Close it with a reason from a fixed list: too expensive, answered too late, chose another company, project postponed, unreachable, outside our service area.
• Postponed is not yet lost. If the customer is waiting for a grant or for the general meeting, leave the lead open with a follow-up on an agreed date.
• Read the reasons every quarter. If “answered too late” and “unreachable” are at the top, the improvement starts with your own follow-up.

The weekly review

Choose a fixed moment, for example Monday morning, with the owner of the company and whoever follows up the leads. Fifteen minutes to half an hour is enough if you always go through the same list:

1. Which leads have been on New for more than one working day?
2. Which leads have no next step, or a follow-up that is overdue?
3. Which technical visits are scheduled this week, and who writes the quote afterwards?
4. Which won leads are not yet on the schedule?
5. Which leads were lost this week, and why?

You go through the quotes waiting for an answer at the same moment, as in following up a quote.

Where a spreadsheet falls short

A spreadsheet is a good start, with these columns: date, source, name, contact details, address of the work, service requested, phase, owner, next step, date of next step and reason lost. With more leads and more people, you quickly see the limits:

• The spreadsheet reminds nobody of a date. You have to open and filter it yourself.
• Whoever overwrites a phase erases the previous one, and the conversations are recorded somewhere else.
• Two colleagues work in two versions of the same file.
• You type a won lead in again as a customer, a quote and an intervention.

An example: a heating company with four technicians

A heating company kept track of its requests in a notebook. From now on, the office assistant records every request as a lead on the same day, with its source.

On Monday, the property manager (syndic) of an apartment building calls about replacing a communal boiler. The owner calls back the same afternoon and schedules a technical visit. There he hears that the general meeting will only decide in March. The quote goes out anyway, and the lead gets a follow-up in the week after the meeting.

On Wednesday, a regular customer asks the technician about a water softener, and the office assistant creates a lead with the source technician on site. At Monday’s review, a website request stands out that has been on New for four days. In the meantime, the customer has chosen another company. The lead is closed with the reason answered too late, and from now on a website request gets an owner the same day.

How it works in Digitalnatie Service Suite

The service CRM is in the sales and invoicing menu, with four tabs: the overview, the pipeline, the list of leads and the activities.

• A new lead: only the title is required. Preferably also fill in the contact person, the phone number, the customer if they already exist and the source, then the qualification (sector, service requested, problem reported) and the follow-up dates.
• The pipeline: one column per phase, from new to completed (won), via to call, called, appointment booked, qualified, quote sent and intervention scheduled. You drag a card to another column, or move it from the card’s menu. On each card, the follow-up is red when it is overdue, orange when it is due today and grey when it is planned.
• The lead record: log or schedule a call, book an appointment for the technical visit, and mark the lead as won or lost. A lost lead gets a reason and a note; it is archived and can be restored.
• The activities: overdue, today and planned, for yourself or for everyone. When you complete an activity, you can plan the next one straight away, so the next step is set at once.
• The overview for the review: the key figures (open leads, follow-ups today, open quotes and won leads), the activities to follow up first because they are due today or overdue, the follow-up per team member and the lead sources.
• From sales to service: a block in the overview shows the agreements without a service order. From the lead, you create the customer, the site and the service order.
• Who sees what: without the permission to see all leads, you see your own leads and those without a salesperson. Amounts only appear with financial permissions; otherwise you see a dash.
• Built-in automations: two fixed service CRM automations, one for follow-up tasks per phase, the other for following up quotes. The administrator sets them to off, trial or on. In trial mode they create nothing, and the history shows what would have happened.

Good to know:

• A phase creates nothing. Moving a lead to completed or intervention scheduled does not create a service order, quote or invoice; Service Suite warns you that there is no service order yet.
• In the role templates supplied, creating a service order and creating a site are reserved for the administrator, the manager and the Dispatcher (planner).
• The call button only opens the phone app and records nothing: log the call with the action provided for it. Marking a quote as sent does not send any email.
• Importing or merging leads is not possible.

More about the module is on the service CRM page. Which other follow-up steps a rule can take over is explained in automating processes.

Frequently asked questions

What does following up leads mean?

Following up leads means that every request for new work has a phase, an owner and a next step with a date, from the first contact until the customer agrees or drops out. That way, no request gets lost between the first phone call and the quote.

What is a warm lead?

A warm lead is someone who contacted you themselves, or an existing customer asking for new work. They already know your company and have a concrete question, but they will not wait long for an answer.

How quickly should you call a new lead back?

Agree on a deadline that you can also meet on busy days, for example within one working day. Above all, make sure every new lead gets an owner the same day, because a lead without an owner waits until someone happens to notice it.

Can I follow up my leads in Excel?

To start with, yes, with columns for the source, the phase, the owner and the date of the next step. But a spreadsheet does not send you reminders, and you then have to type a won lead in again as a customer, a quote and an intervention.

Does Service Suite create an intervention when a lead is won?

No. Changing the phase does not create a service order, quote or invoice. If the lead does not have a service order yet, Service Suite warns you, and you create it from the lead record.