Is your plumbing business growing the way it should? If not, we need to talk. Here is the hard truth: when a homeowner calls your company and nobody picks up, she doesn't wait. She calls the guy down the street, and he gets the job. In a free 30-minute consultation, we walk your call process the way a homeowner does, from the first ring to the estimate, and show you where your calls and jobs are slipping away.
Home Service Guild is a marketing agency for home service companies, led by Robert Earl. He has 25+ years working with the home service industry and holds Google certifications in Google Ads Search, Conversion Optimization and Google Analytics, so the calls you catch can be traced back to the marketing that brought them in. He also wrote the book When You Care Enough About Service, You Build a System.
It's 8 a.m. on a Tuesday. A homeowner's basement floor drain is backing up and the washer is still running. She calls you. Both of your plumbers are under a house, the office line rolls to voicemail, and nobody listens to her message until lunch. By then she has called two other companies, and one of them already has a truck in her driveway.
The rest of the week looks the same. A pipe bursts at 11 at night, and the caller hears a greeting that says you open at 7. The water heater estimate you sent Friday afternoon never gets a follow-up call. A text about a running toilet sits on a tech's personal phone all weekend. None of it looks like a lost job on the day it happens. It looks like a busy week. Our plumbing page covers what should happen to a call that comes in at night.
Before we suggest anything, we go through your company the way your customers do. Here is what we look for:
Robert's rule of thumb: if you have techs on the road, each of them should be getting a call or lead a day. When a plumbing company falls short of that, we look at what happens after the phone rings before we talk about spending more on ads.
A plumbing CRM is the list of everyone who has called, texted or filled out a form, plus every estimate you have sent, who owns it and what happens next. If you run Housecall Pro or Jobber, you already pay for one. Many plumbing companies use only part of it, because nobody ever showed them what the tools can do or walked their calls from the customer's side.
That is where we start. We sit down with you, look at how your calls get answered today and what your software can already do, and then set it up together: the missed-call text back, the alerts, the after-hours plan, the estimate reminders and the source on every call. The burst pipe gets a person fast. The faucet swap gets booked for tomorrow. The repipe estimate gets followed up until the homeowner says yes or no. Because every call keeps where it came from, you can see which marketing brings in paying jobs, and none of your ad money goes to waste.
We find out the way a homeowner would. We call at a busy hour and after hours, fill out your website form and send a text, then follow each one to see who answers, how fast and what happens next. We also go through your open estimates and who is supposed to follow them up. You get a plain written list of what to fix first, and we go over it with you.
That list is your CRM. Calls, texts, website forms and leads from sites like Angi or Thumbtack all land in one place, with spam and sales pitches filtered out. You, your office and your CSR work from the same list, so anyone can see who called, who got a reply and who is still waiting. You can check it from your phone between jobs.
Yes, if your phone system or field service app can send one, and many can. We check what yours can do, turn it on and write the message with you. Something like: "Sorry we missed you, this is [your company]. Is this an emergency? Reply here and we'll call you right back." The homeowner knows a real plumbing company got her call, and the missed call still lands on your list for a call back.
Sometimes. We look at who picks up during the day, who carries the phone at night and on weekends, and what a caller hears when nobody can. Some plumbing companies do fine with an on-call rotation. Some need an answering service for emergencies. Some only need a better greeting and a text back. If one fits your company, we tell you what to look for and make sure its messages land on your list, not in someone's email.
Speed to lead matters most on the calls that can't wait. A homeowner with a sewer backup is calling down the list, while a faucet swap can wait until morning. We set an alert on every new call, text and form so the right person sees it right away, plus a morning list of anyone still waiting. That way the first reply doesn't depend on someone checking an inbox from a crawl space.
Every open estimate gets a person who owns it and a reminder until the homeowner says yes, no or not yet. A "not yet" gets a date to check back. A family with no hot water decides fast, so that follow-up comes quickly. A repipe or a sewer line replacement is a bigger decision, and the homeowner may be getting other bids, so that follow-up runs longer. In Housecall Pro or Jobber much of it can go out on its own, written in your words, and you decide which big jobs get a personal call first.
How long to wait before following up on a quoteEstimate follow-up in Housecall Pro
Yes. We set up the tools inside the software you already pay for, so a call can become an estimate without anyone retyping the name, the address or the note about where the cleanout is. If you don't use either one yet, the list works on its own.
Every inquiry into Housecall ProJobber for home service companies
Yes. Each call, text and form keeps where it came from, whether that was Google, Local Services Ads, Facebook, Angi or a neighbor's referral, along with whether the estimate was won. This is where follow-up ties back to your marketing. You can see which ads bring in booked jobs, which ones bring in price shoppers, and where next month's money should go.
Which marketing brings in jobsGetting more plumbing customers
Consultations and training are by phone or video. How we quote.
CRM stands for customer relationship management. For a plumbing company, it is the list of everyone who called, texted or filled out a form, plus every estimate you sent and where it stands. It answers three questions at a glance: who called, who is still waiting on a reply, and which estimates are still open. If you use Housecall Pro or Jobber, you already have one built in.
No. We review how your company answers and set up the fixes. Your office and your plumbers keep answering, because they know the schedule and the work. If you need help after hours, we'll tell you plainly whether an answering service makes sense for you.
It depends on who can carry the phone. If someone on your team takes emergency calls at night and wants that work, a good greeting, a text back and an alert may be all you need. If nobody can, an answering service can take the call and pass it on. Either way, the call should land on your list with a name and a number, ready for the on-call plumber or the morning.
As fast as you can when water is moving. A homeowner with a burst pipe or a sewer backup keeps calling down the list until someone answers. A dripping faucet or a toilet quote can wait a few hours. Either way, a quick text that says when you'll call back is better than silence.
Make every message useful. Ask if they had questions about the water heater options, offer to walk them through the repipe again, or tell them when you have an opening. Then ask plainly whether it's a yes, a no or a not yet, and if it's not yet, ask when to check back and do it. That reads as good service. A quote nobody mentions again tells the homeowner how the job might go. How long to wait before following up on a quote covers the timing.
No. If you run Housecall Pro or Jobber, we set up what you already pay for. If you run something else, tell us what it is and we'll tell you plainly what it can do. If you have no software yet, we can start with the list on its own.
They learn a better way to use what you have. We train whoever answers your phones online, keep the steps short enough to follow on a busy Monday, and record the session for the next person you hire.
No, and nobody honest can. We don't control who picks up your phone or how your plumbers sell the job. What we put in writing is the scope, the price and what we set up, and once it's running you can see for yourself how many calls came in and how many were booked.
Is your plumbing business growing the way it should? If not, we need to talk.
Every call that rings out and every estimate nobody follows up goes to the guy down the street. The sloppy one, who shows up late and forgets to call back. He's booking work that should be yours, and he isn't even trying. It's time to get serious, answer every call, follow up every estimate and put them out of business.
The homeowners in your towns are counting on you, and so is your business. Make the decision. In 30 minutes we'll walk your calls the way a homeowner does and show you where the jobs are slipping.
