CRM and marketing automation

Lead Follow-Up Workflow

Enquiries arrive and follow-up depends on somebody remembering. It happens on quiet days and gets skipped on busy ones, which are the days the enquiries come in.

What it looks like in practice

Enquiries get answered quickly on a quiet Tuesday and not at all in the week everybody is on site. The weeks everybody is on site are the weeks the enquiries arrive. Nobody is being careless. The system is one person's memory, and memory is busiest exactly when it is needed.

How I build it

1. Decide the trigger: a form, a call, a booking or a tag.
2. Send an instant acknowledgement so the enquiry is never met with silence.
3. Map a short sequence across days, each message with its own job.
4. Move the opportunity through pipeline stages automatically as things happen.
5. Add the stop rule, so anyone who replies or books leaves the sequence at once.

What is included

• Trigger setup
• An email and SMS follow-up map
• Pipeline movement
• Tagging logic that reporting can use

A five touch sequence that does not annoy people

1. Minute one. Automatic acknowledgement, says when a human replies.
2. Hour one. A real reply from a person.
3. Day two. Something useful whether or not they buy.
4. Day five. A direct ask with a booking link.
5. Day ten. A polite close that says you will stop here.

The last message reliably gets replies, because it removes the pressure.

Where it usually goes wrong

• The sequence keeps sending after somebody has already replied
• Every message says the same thing in slightly different words
• No owner is named, so three people each assume another has it
• The follow-up is email only, when the enquiry came from a phone

What it is like once it works

Every enquiry gets an acknowledgement within a minute and a sequence behind it, and the moment someone replies or books, the sequence stops. Follow-up that used to depend on a good week now happens in the bad ones too.

You probably need this if: You cannot say how many enquiries you got last month; Leads say they went with whoever answered first.

Pipeline Clean-Up Support

A CRM pipeline nobody trusts, full of stale cards and duplicates, so the team works from memory and the forecast means nothing.

What it looks like in practice

Open the CRM and there are cards sitting in Proposal Sent from two years ago, the same company entered three times under three spellings, and a forecast everybody has quietly agreed to ignore.

How I build it

1. Agree what each stage actually means, in one sentence each.
2. Find duplicates and merge them, keeping the richer record.
3. Age the pipeline: anything untouched past a threshold is reviewed or closed.
4. Move every remaining card to the stage that matches reality.
5. Write the rule that keeps it clean, and automate the parts that can be automated.

What is included

• A stage by stage review
• Notes on duplicate and stale cards
• A clean-up checklist
• A recommended stage map

Stage definitions that stop the drift

• New. Enquiry received, not yet contacted.
• Contacted. A human has replied, awaiting response.
• Qualified. Fit and need confirmed by a conversation.
• Proposed. Scope and price sent.
• Won or Lost. With a reason recorded, because that is the useful part.

Where it usually goes wrong

• Stages describe how the team feels rather than what has happened
• No stage has a rule for leaving it, so cards never move
• Duplicates are merged once and created again the same week
• Dead deals are left open because closing them feels like giving up

What it is like once it works

Each stage has a definition you could argue with, a rule for entering and a rule for leaving. The forecast becomes something worth questioning instead of something to ignore.

You probably need this if: The pipeline has cards older than your longest project; Two people are working the same lead.

Booking Reminder Automation

Appointments booked and then forgotten, so no-shows eat the diary and reception spends the morning on the phone.

What it looks like in practice

Reception spends the first hour of every day ringing round to confirm appointments, and the gaps appear anyway. A no-show costs the slot, the preparation and the hour that went into chasing it.

How I build it

1. Confirm immediately, with the details and a link to reschedule.
2. Remind at the intervals that suit the appointment type.
3. Attach whatever the client should complete beforehand.
4. Make rescheduling one tap, because a moved appointment beats an empty slot.
5. Follow up afterwards, which is where rebooking actually happens.

What is included

• Confirmation message
• A reminder sequence
• Reschedule link placement
• Post-appointment follow-up

Timing that works for most service businesses

• On booking: confirmation with date, time, place and a reschedule link.
• Two days before: reminder with any form to complete.
• Morning of: short reminder, reschedule link again.
• After: thank you, and the next step if there is one.

Reminders should make rescheduling easy rather than guilt people into attending. An empty slot you know about on Tuesday can be filled.

Where it usually goes wrong

• One reminder, sent too early to be useful
• A reminder with no way to reply, reschedule or cancel
• Reminders that keep arriving after somebody has already cancelled
• A message that reads like a system rather than a person

What it is like once it works

Reminders go out on a schedule that suits the appointment type, cancelling is easy enough that people actually do it instead of vanishing, and reception spends the first hour on work rather than the phone.

You probably need this if: No-shows are a running joke in the team; Reception spends the first hour confirming appointments.

Form to CRM Integration

A website form that emails an inbox. The lead exists in one person's mail and nowhere the business can see, report on or follow up from.

What it looks like in practice

The website form emails the office address. The lead exists inside one mailbox, in a thread, between a newsletter and a receipt. Nobody can report on it, and if that person is away it simply waits.

How I build it

1. Decide what the form must capture and what it can ask later.
2. Create the custom fields in the CRM before connecting anything.
3. Connect the form, mapping each field deliberately rather than by default.
4. Tag by source and service so reporting can separate them later.
5. Submit a real test, then check the record, the notification and the automation all fired.

What is included

• Custom fields
• Tagging rules
• Notification setup
• Pipeline entry

The test that catches most problems

Submit the form yourself with a personal email and phone number, then check five things: the contact exists with every field mapped, the tags are right, the notification arrived, the opportunity is in the first stage, and the automatic acknowledgement reached your inbox. If any one of those fails, the leak is found before a real lead hits it.

Where it usually goes wrong

• The notification email is treated as the record
• No field records which page or campaign the enquiry came from
• Nobody retests the form after the site changes, so it fails silently
• Required fields are added later and break older integrations

What it is like once it works

The enquiry lands in the CRM with its source attached, the inbox gets a copy rather than the responsibility, and a month later you can still answer which page produced which lead.

You probably need this if: Leads live in an inbox; Nobody can tell you which page an enquiry came from.

Missed Call Text-Back Flow

A missed call is a lost lead in most service businesses, because the caller simply rings the next company on the list.

What it looks like in practice

A tradesperson is under a sink with both hands full. The phone rings out. The caller does not leave a message, because almost nobody does. They ring the next number on the list, and that is the job gone, without anybody ever knowing it existed.

How I build it

1. Trigger on a missed or unanswered inbound call.
2. Send an SMS within seconds, written as a person would write it.
3. Create a task so a human follows up rather than leaving it to the automation.
4. Record the call and the reply against the contact.
5. Review weekly: how many missed calls, how many recovered.

What is included

• Missed-call trigger
• SMS reply copy
• Task creation
• A note on the pipeline record

The message itself

"Hi, this is Johvany. Sorry I missed your call, I am with a client. Tell me what you need and I will come back to you within the hour, or book a time here: [link]"

Short, human, and it gives two ways to continue. Avoid anything that reads as an autoresponder, because the point is to sound like a business that answers.

Where it usually goes wrong

• The automatic reply reads like an automatic reply
• Replies go to a number nobody is watching
• The message promises a call back at a time that is not kept
• It fires for existing customers and suppliers as well as new callers

What it is like once it works

A missed call turns into a text conversation within seconds, in plain language, from a number that somebody reads. The caller waits, because now there is a reason to.

You probably need this if: You work on site and cannot always answer; Your phone bill shows calls you never returned.

Segmentation & Tagging System

A contact list where everyone receives everything, so open rates fall and unsubscribes climb.

What it looks like in practice

One list, one send, everybody gets it. Long standing customers receive the offer written for new ones, and somebody who bought last week is asked whether they have considered buying. Unsubscribes climb and nobody can say precisely why.

How I build it

1. Decide what you will actually send differently to different people.
2. Name tags on one convention: source, service, stage, status.
3. Apply tags automatically at the point of capture, not by hand afterwards.
4. Build the smart lists the sending actually needs.
5. Write the rules down, so the next person does not invent a second system.

What is included

• A tag naming plan
• Smart list suggestions
• Audience grouping
• Clean-up notes for existing tags

A naming convention that survives contact

• src-google-ads, src-referral: where they came from
• svc-physio, svc-renovation: what they want
• stage-enquiry, stage-client: where they are
• do-not-contact: absolute, checked by every send

Prefixes matter more than they look. They keep the tag list sorted into groups and stop the same idea being spelled three ways.

Where it usually goes wrong

• Tags are created ad hoc and mean different things to different people
• Nothing ever removes a tag, so eventually everyone has all of them
• Segments are rebuilt by hand at send time and never reused
• Tags record what somebody is called rather than what they did

What it is like once it works

Tags follow a convention anyone can read, they are applied and removed by the workflows themselves, and a segment is something you select rather than something you rebuild.

You probably need this if: Your list gets one email and everyone receives it; You have tags nobody remembers creating.

CRM Reporting Snapshot

Data sitting in the CRM that nobody reads, so decisions get made on impressions instead.

What it looks like in practice

Everything needed is already in the CRM. Nobody looks at it, so decisions get made on the feeling of how the week went, and that feeling is usually shaped by whichever phone call happened last.

How I build it

1. Agree the handful of numbers the business will actually act on.
2. Define how each is calculated, including the awkward exceptions.
3. Pull them on a fixed day so the trend is comparable week to week.
4. Write the short interpretation: what changed and what to do about it.
5. Automate the assembly so the report exists whether or not anyone remembers.

What is included

• Lead summary
• Pipeline snapshot
• Source breakdown
• Action notes for the coming week

A weekly snapshot that fits on one screen

• Leads this week, against last week
• Where they came from
• How many were contacted, and how fast
• Booked and closed
• Two lines: what changed, and what I am doing next

The last two lines are the report. The numbers are only the evidence.

Where it usually goes wrong

• The report answers what is easy to export rather than what is being asked
• Numbers are pulled on different days, so weeks are not comparable
• Every metric is included, which is the same as including none
• There is no note saying how each figure was produced

What it is like once it works

One screen, the same five numbers every week, produced the same way, with a line underneath saying what changed and what is being done about it.

You probably need this if: Your CRM has data you have never looked at; Reporting is rebuilt by hand every month.