Automations

Service businesses lose money in the gaps between things, not during them. The quote nobody chased. The invoice that went thirty days without a nudge. The customer who would happily have left a five-star review if anyone had asked while the work was still fresh.

Owners know all of this and still do not do it, because the moment it needs doing is the moment they are under somebody’s sink. An automation is a standing instruction that does it for you.

Understand the shape

Every automation is the same three parts:

When something happens · if some condition holds · do something.

When a job is finished, if the client has agreed to texts, text them two hours later asking for a review. You say it once, and it happens every time afterwards.

Turn one on

Open Automations and pick a recipe. Each one is a ready-made instruction with its parts already matched up, so you are choosing a behavior rather than assembling one from a blank screen.

The confirmation tells you in plain words what will now happen and when, so you can see whether it is what you meant before you switch it on.

What they are good for

The recipes cover the gaps that cost the most:

• Chasing a quote that has been sent and not answered.
• Nudging an invoice that has gone past due.
• Asking for a review while the work is still fresh.
• Telling you about finished jobs nobody has invoiced — and that email opens the Jobs list with those jobs already selected, so you can bill them in one go. See Invoicing several jobs at once.

Turn one off

Switch an automation off and it stops. Nothing it already did is undone — the texts that went, went — but no further ones are sent.

It is worth reviewing what you have on after a few months. An automation you forgot about is still messaging your clients.

What it costs

The automations themselves are on every plan. What an individual one does follows the usual rule: an email costs nothing and is on Starter, and a text needs Professional because a message costs per send. See Text messages and consent.