Customers compare on price. But the enquiry you never got back to never compared you at all.
Part of the series Managing solar enquiries: from first contact to a signed quote.
The message on the pad by the phone
A homeowner fills in your web form on Sunday night. On Monday you are on a roof. The office rings on Tuesday and gets voicemail. The message goes on a pad. On Thursday another firm goes out to see them. By the time you get to the pad, the customer has a quote in hand and a reason to be polite to you.
Nobody in this story did anything wrong. They were rushed off their feet. That is the point. An enquiry does not die because someone decided to ignore it. It dies because nobody owned the next step, nobody was reminded, and nothing showed how long it had been waiting.
Price matters, and on plenty of jobs it decides. But price only decides between the firms that turned up. Getting back to people quickly, and staying in touch until they decide, is what puts you on the shortlist. It is also what keeps a customer with you when the quotes are close.
Nobody decided to ignore them. Four things went wrong instead.
Trace a lost enquiry back and you find one of these.
- Nobody owned it. The enquiry came in to a shared inbox, or to whoever answered the phone. Two people each assumed the other had it.
- Nobody was reminded. The person who took it meant to ring back. Nothing brought it to the front of their day.
- It lived in an email. The last thing the customer said, and the last thing the firm promised, were in a thread only one person could see.
- Nobody could see how long it had waited. The firm had a view about how quickly it should respond. Nothing showed which enquiries had gone past it.
None of these are about effort. They are about organisation. A busy firm with a system loses fewer enquiries than a quiet firm without one.
Ten minutes a morning, and a name on every enquiry
This is the routine. It needs a list, a diary and ten minutes before the vans go out. You can start it on paper today.
1. One list, one name, one next step
Every open enquiry goes on a single list. Against each one: the name of the person who owns it, the next thing that will happen, and the date it will happen by. An enquiry with no next step and no date is already going cold.
2. A number of days for each stage
Decide how long an enquiry may sit at each stage before it needs attention, and write the number down. Two working days to make first contact. A week to get the survey booked. A fortnight from survey to quote. Whatever suits how you work. The number does not have to be ambitious. It has to be visible, so everyone knows when an enquiry has gone past it.
3. Three questions every morning
Who is waiting for a call back? Who has been at their stage longer than the number allows? Which quotes have gone out and had no answer? Each one gets a call, a message, or a new date. Nothing is left without a next step.
4. Move it or close it
An enquiry that has stalled gets one of two things: a new date, or a reason. "Paused until the extension is finished, ring in March" is a date. "Went with another firm" is a reason. Both are fine. A record with a reason is not a failure. It is the note that lets you ring them again in two years when they want a battery. What is not fine is an enquiry with neither, sitting on the list for months.
5. Follow the quote up on a schedule
A quote that goes out and gets no answer is the most expensive silence of all, because the survey and the design are already paid for. Decide when the first nudge goes, a few days after the quote, and send a second before the price expires. Put both dates in the diary the day the quote is sent, not when you remember.
6. Say what happened, where the next person can see it
Every call, every promise, every "ring back after the holiday" goes on the enquiry's record, not in someone's inbox. Whoever picks up the phone next can see what was said last time without asking.
The list is the first thing dropped when it gets busy
The routine fails the same way the enquiries did. Two things stop that. Give the morning check to one named person, with a stand-in for when they are out. And keep the list where everyone can see it, so when the owner is up a ladder, the office can still tell a customer who has their enquiry and what happens next.
Installa does the ten minutes for you
- Stop keeping the list. The home screen is the list. It shows who is waiting for a call back, who has gone quiet because they have sat longer than their stage allows, and which quotes have had no answer, oldest first.
- Stop checking the dates. Each stage has a target in days, set when the account is created, and an enquiry past it is flagged. Rename the stages and set the chance of winning against each to suit how you work.
- Stop remembering to ring back. Call-backs have a date and a name on them. Snooze one, set it to repeat, or create it from a template, and the person it belongs to is told when it falls due.
- Stop chasing quotes by hand. Switch on quote reminders and Installa emails the customer a nudge a set number of days after a quote goes out, and again before the price expires.
- Stop losing the reason. Closing an enquiry as lost records why, and it can be brought back when the customer comes round.
- Stop asking what was said. Calls, notes and stage changes stay on the enquiry, so whoever rings next can see the history.
Every enquiry with a name on it, a next step, and a date. That is the whole routine, and it is what the enquiry screens are for. See how enquiry management in Installa works.