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Phone tips for South Florida trades, none of them padding.
Posts on answering calls in both languages, replying fast, and winning quoted work. Where a post would need a number we have not measured, it says so instead of making one up.
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32 posts, newest first
Inspections from two storms ago: the roofing list worth a second call
Every inspection that became a quote that became nothing. How to pull that list before the next season and text it at a human pace, in the customer's language.
Read the postWhere do your jobs come from? Google, a neighbor, Angi: counted, not guessed
"I think most of our calls come from Google" is a feeling. Saving the source on every call and reporting jobs won by source, tech and language, so ad spend has something to answer to.
Read the postThe repipe you quoted in March: where approved plumbing work goes to die
Approved, never scheduled, sitting under estimates. How to pull it out and follow up on work the customer already said yes to.
Read the postThe son in Orlando is paying: quoting a house whose owner lives out of town
Westchester houses are changing hands. The person calling is family handling a parent's house from another city. They want the quote in writing, a text, and a record they can forward.
Read the postThe EN/ES Conversion Gap Nobody Is Measuring
The gap is not small. It is invisible, because no normal setup notes the language of a call and carries it through to the report.
Read the postTexting old customers without annoying them
The list you already paid for. Permission you actually have versus a bought list. A human pace, quiet hours, a stop on the first reply.
Read the postMaintenance plans that renew themselves, and why yours don't
Renewals depend on somebody remembering. A reminder that goes out on its own, before the season, turns a lapsed list into booked tune-ups.
Read the postA referral calls once. What happens when it rings out
West Miami runs on word of mouth in sixty-year-old houses. The neighbor passes your number; that person calls once. You never learn it happened.
Read the postAsk every customer, not just the happy ones
Review gating is against Google's rules and it shows. A request after every finished job, in the customer's language, one reminder, replies drafted and held for your okay.
Read the postPermits, inspections, and the electrical job that stalls quietly
A permitted job has dates nobody is watching. Put permit pulled, rough-in and final on the job card so a job waiting on the county looks different from one that went cold.
Read the postThe job is not done until the paperwork is: COIs, invoices and the property manager
Doral is warehouses and gated communities run by managers. Unit, date, work done, invoice and certificate of insurance, sent from a phone without chasing.
Read the postThe Approved-Work Report Every Contractor Should Run
Work that was quoted, approved, and never scheduled is already-sold money sitting in your dispatch software with nobody owning it.
Read the postThree phones, one customer: why the office never knows what the tech said
Texts on the tech's phone, email in the office, voicemail on the main line. One thread per customer, replies from the company number, private notes the customer never sees.
Read the postClaim pending or gone cold: two roofs that look the same on your list
A job waiting on an adjuster and a job the customer forgot sit in the same column. Claim and adjuster steps on the job card, so follow-up goes to the right one.
Read the postTwo businesses on one phone: the emergency and the repipe need different follow-up
A burst pipe wants a reply in seconds and a truck. A repipe wants three weeks of written follow-up. Most companies run both off one unanswered phone.
Read the postSecond on the manager's list is nowhere on it
Fontainebleau condo work is bought by managers who keep three vendors per trade and call down the list in the order of who answered last time. Reply time is your ranking.
Read the postThe board that replaces the notebook on the dash
Where does each call stand right now? A card per call, a step per stage, a color when one has waited too long. What the office sees at 7 AM instead of asking three people.
Read the postYou did not lose the panel job on price. You lost it on the second follow-up
Three companies quote a $4,000 panel. Two never call back. The homeowner signs with the one that did, and the other two blame price.
Read the postThe landlord calls three companies in a row. How the second one wins
Sweetwater is dense and rented. The tenant calls the landlord, the landlord calls down a list. The second call goes out ninety seconds after the first hits voicemail.
Read the postWho answers your AC line at 9 PM?
The AC dies at night and the caller does not leave a voicemail. What an automated voice should do on that call, and what it must never do.
Read the postDid Your CRM Vendor Build It, or License It?
Most contractor CRMs are somebody else’s platform, set up a certain way. That is fine. Hiding it is not. Here is exactly what you are buying from us.
Read the postWhat an automated voice should and should not do on a contractor's phone
It should say it is automated and recorded, offer Spanish or English right away, take the address and book a real slot. It should never quote, argue, or handle an emergency alone.
Read the postWater is on the floor and they are dialing the next number: the sixty-second window
What a plumbing emergency caller actually does after the first ring-out, and why the reply has to carry an arrival window, not a promise to call back.
Read the postThe call comes in Spanish. Your voicemail is in English. What the caller does next
In Hialeah the caller assumes he dialed the wrong company and calls the next one. The greeting, the text back and the booking page in the language of the call.
Read the postYour form is in Spanish. Is the confirmation?
The form is the cheap half. The auto-reply, the booking page, the reminder and the voicemail are where the Spanish stops.
Read the postBilingual Intake: What Most Miami Companies Get Wrong
Almost every company that says it serves Spanish-speaking customers has a Spanish form and an English everything else. The break is never the form.
Read the postThe three weeks after a storm: your phone during the only weeks that matter
Volume spikes exactly when nobody can answer. A text back within a minute and a voice agent that books inspections keep the backlog on your board instead of at the next company.
Read the postSame street, same install date: reading Kendall's replacement wave before it hits
Subdivisions built in one wave age in one wave. Whose system is fifteen years old, by street, from your own job history. Reminders before the season, quotes followed up for weeks.
Read the postFollow-up that stops the moment they answer
Everyone talks about starting follow-up. The part that keeps customers is stopping it: on a reply, a booking, or a STOP, in either language, and never between 8 PM and 8 AM.
Read the postHow Fast Does a Company Answer a New Call?
There is no honest South Florida average to quote, and making one up would be worse than saying so. What we can describe is the thing that decides the answer at your company.
Read the postThe August wave: what happens to the calls you miss the week every AC dies
Systems on one street share an install date, so they fail together. The calls come in a wave, the week nobody can answer.
Read the postGuides
Two things to run on your own phone
Does Your Company Really Handle Calls in Spanish?
A checklist you can run on your own phone setup in under an hour, with a spare phone and nothing to buy.
Read the guideHow Fast Does Your Company Answer a New Call?
Four tests, one afternoon, your own number. No made-up South Florida average.
Read the guideRather talk it through than read about it?
A 30-minute call covers the same ground as the posts above: handling calls in both languages, measuring how fast you reply, and what the setup looks like for your company.