A good survey visit, and then silence
A couple move into a house and want every external lock replaced. Your engineer visits, walks round, notes the front and back door mechanisms, the patio door and the garage side door, measures the cylinders and talks through options. The customers seem keen. Back at the office, the quote is typed up two days later and emailed.
Nothing happens. Nobody follows up, because the office is busy with emergency work and the engineer assumes the office is handling it. Six weeks later the engineer drives past the house and sees another locksmith's van outside.
Emergency work always wins the attention
In most locksmith firms, the day is driven by urgent calls. Planned work is valuable, but it waits. Quotes are written in whatever gap appears and followed up only when someone remembers.
- Survey notes are on paper or in the engineer's phone and typed up later.
- Quotes are built in a word processor or accounts package, one at a time.
- Options (for example two or three product choices per door) are hard to present clearly.
- Nobody owns follow-up, so it does not happen.
- There is no list of open quotes, so nobody knows what is outstanding.
Surveys that never turn into jobs
Every survey visit costs an engineer's time. A quote that is never followed up turns that time into nothing. Planned work also fills the quieter daytime hours between emergencies, so losing it leaves engineers underused. And customers who do not hear back assume you are not interested, which is not the impression you want to give someone who has just moved to your area.
Planned work is also where your better margins tend to sit, because it is priced calmly and fitted in daylight without an out-of-hours premium to justify. A firm that closes more of it relies less on the night phone.
From survey to quote to follow-up, in one flow
We build a quote pipeline around how your engineers already survey.
- The engineer records the survey on their phone, door by door: location, current hardware, measurements and photos.
- For each door, they pick one or more options from your product and labour price list, so the quote is priced as they go.
- A clear quote is generated from the survey, with photos of each door and options side by side, and sent to the customer the same day, often before the engineer has left the street.
- The customer can accept online, choose options per door and pick a date from your available slots.
- If there is no reply, follow-ups go out at the intervals you choose, by email or text, with a simple way to say "not now" or ask a question.
- The office sees a list of open quotes by age and value, with a prompt to phone the ones that matter most.
| Step | Today | With the pipeline |
|---|---|---|
| Survey notes | Paper or phone notes | Door-by-door record with photos |
| Quote written | Days later, by the office | Generated from the survey |
| Options | Described in a paragraph | Chosen per door by the customer |
| Follow-up | When someone remembers | Scheduled, with a call list |
| Acceptance | Phone call and diary entry | Online, with a booking slot |
Product choices and what you recommend for each door remain your engineers' expertise. The system presents their recommendations clearly; it does not make them.
Planned work that fills the diary
Quotes go out while the customer still remembers the visit. Follow-up happens without anyone having to think about it. The office knows exactly which quotes are open and which are worth a call. Accepted jobs land in the diary with parts known in advance, which makes them efficient to fit.
You also learn something useful: which quote types are accepted and which stall, and whether customers are choosing your cheaper or fuller options.
Are your planned-work quotes fading?
- Quotes are sent days after the survey.
- Nobody follows up quotes as a routine.
- You could not list your open quotes and their value.
- Customers struggle to understand options in your quotes.
- You have lost planned jobs to firms who followed up.