A CRM for tradesmen that shows every job on one screen
The phone goes. "You did some work for us a couple of years back, the leak in the kitchen?" And you're already opening three different systems trying to remember.
Where it hurts
The quote's in your quoting tool. The invoice is in Xero. The job notes are on a paper sheet, or a WhatsApp thread, or in someone's head. The photos are on a phone. To piece together one customer's history you become a detective.
So you either spend ten minutes digging, or you wing it and hope. And when a customer says "you fitted this, it's failed, what did you use?", not knowing looks bad and costs you the goodwill.
Every repeat customer is a small pile of scattered records that should be one clear story.
What I'd build
I'd start with the plumbing: connect the systems where your job information already lives (your CRM, Xero or QuickBooks, your quoting or job-sheet tool) so each customer record shows one timeline, quotes, jobs, invoices, photos and notes in date order. Then the layer that makes the history usable. Job notes are scrappy: half a sentence on a sheet, a WhatsApp thread, a photo with no caption. So I'd add an AI step that reads what's there for each job and drafts a short plain-English summary (what was done, what was fitted, anything to watch) at the top of the record. When someone rings about work from two years ago, the answer's in the first three lines. I'll tell you honestly whether yours is a small job or a proper piece of work.
What changes
- One timeline per customer: quotes, jobs, invoices and notes together
- Each job summed up in plain English, so 'what did you use?' takes seconds
- Photos and scrappy notes attached to the right customer, not lost on a phone
- Repeat work is easier because the history is right there
Related fixes
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