Inbox & diary
Enquiries answered between jobs — or not at all. The diary lives in your head, the inbox lives in your pocket, and both leak work.
What the desk runs
- Triage every morning to an agreed cut-off — urgent flagged, routine answered, junk cleared
- Booking confirmations and "where are we" replies sent in your name, on your rules
- New enquiries logged with the details you'd ask for — address, job type, photos chased
- Tomorrow's day sheet sent every evening — jobs, addresses, certs due
What lands on your desk
one triaged inbox, bookings confirmed, tomorrow's jobs on a day sheet
That's the artefact — not a promise, a thing you can check. If it isn't landing, the lane isn't running.
Runs inside your tools
- Gmail / Outlook
- ServiceM8, Tradify, simPRO or a shared diary
- Your existing phone workflow — nothing new to learn
The boundary
The desk never quotes prices, never promises dates you haven't approved, and never replies as itself — customers see your business, not a service.
Signs this is your leak
- You've answered "are you free Thursday" more than once this week
- Enquiries sit unread for days because the van comes first
- Evenings disappear into replies you could have sent at 7am
What it looks like running
Every morning before nine the desk clears what came in overnight — the boiler quote request gets an answer in your name, the junk goes, the landlord chasing a cert gets flagged urgent. Your phone stops buzzing for things that aren't work.
The diary runs as a real calendar, not a memory. Jobs carry buffers, estimates carry travel time, and when a customer moves a slot the day's other bookings shift before you ever hear about it.
Fair questions
What about the calls I can't take on a job?
Missed-call follow-up sits in this lane — enquiries get logged and called back on your rules, so a ringing phone stops being a lost job.
Do customers know it's not me replying?
Replies go out in your business's name and voice, from your addresses. The desk is invisible unless you want it named.
Is this the lane that leaks?
Six questions, five minutes — the mini-audit shows where your week actually goes and which lane to fix first.