Wellington Electricians: Stop Losing Jobs to Voicemail
TL;DR:
- Most new work arrives while you’re on the tools. If it lands in voicemail or a text thread, some of it gets lost and some of it goes to whoever answered first.
- An online quote request gets the details you need in writing, so you can price the job and pick a time that suits your route across town.
- Gallop builds an electrician a website with quote requests (and booking for standard jobs) plus an app to run it, in a few minutes.
You’re halfway through a switchboard upgrade in Khandallah when the phone goes. It’s a homeowner in Miramar who wants a quote for new downlights. You can’t answer, they don’t leave a message, and by the time you see the missed call they’ve rung the next sparky on Google.
Most electricians don’t lose work because of the quality of their wiring. They lose it in the gap between someone asking and someone answering.
Why do electricians lose jobs between calls?
Because the people who need you are free when you aren’t. They search on a lunch break or in the evening, and they ring the first few names that come up. If you can’t answer, the next name on the list can.
Even when they do leave a message, you end up writing job details on the back of an invoice book, then playing phone tag to find out what they actually want.
How do online quote requests help?
They get the job details in writing, without you stopping work. The customer describes the job (what they want done, where, and when suits them), and it lands in one place on your phone.
That helps in three ways:
- Nothing gets lost. Every request is in one list, not scattered across texts, voicemail and notes.
- Better quotes. You know whether it’s three downlights or a full rewire before you ring back.
- You set the time. For a quote job, you reply with a price and choose when to do it, so you can group work by area and spend less of the day crossing town.
For small, standard jobs you can also let people book a time directly, within the hours you set.
Keeping the week sane across Wellington
No app can fix the traffic between Paekākāriki and Miramar. What helps is deciding where you’ll be before you commit to a time:
- Group jobs by area. Hutt Valley on Tuesdays, the eastern suburbs on Thursdays, and so on.
- Quote first for anything big. Agree the time when you reply, not when they ask.
- Only offer online booking for short, standard jobs, and set your working hours so nobody books you at 7am on the other side of the harbour.
- Block out time off, including the afternoons you keep for admin.
How Gallop helps an electrical business
Gallop builds an electrician a website and the business app to run it from, from a plain description of the business:
- Quote requests, where a customer describes the job and you reply with a price
- Online booking for standard jobs, within your working hours and time off
- Your services, area and hours on a site that works well on a phone
- One business app on iPhone, Android or the web, with every request, booking and customer in one place
- Bookings in your phone’s calendar, whether you use Google, Apple or Outlook
You see a working preview before you pay anything. After the free period there’s one plan, priced for your country; see pricing.
What Gallop doesn’t do yet
- No route planning or travel time. Gallop doesn’t add travel buffers between bookings or plan your route. Grouping jobs by area and quoting first is the way to handle it today.
- No online payments. No deposits or paying at booking. Take payment in person, by cash or on your own card terminal, and Gallop records it with a receipt.
- No two-way calendar sync. Bookings show in your phone’s calendar, but a personal appointment in that calendar doesn’t stop people booking that time. Block it out as time off in Gallop instead.
- No connections to other software, such as accounting apps.
If one of these would make the difference for you, tell us. We’d rather build it into Gallop for everyone than quote you for custom work.
What to do this week
- Count the missed calls you never called back.
- Split your work into “can book straight away” and “needs a quote”.
- Pick the areas you’ll cover on which days.
- Put a quote request link on your Google Business Profile, your van and your email signature.
Describe your electrical business and see your site in a few minutes. It’s free to build.