AI Lead Follow-Up for a Trades Business in Lewisham: When the Phone Rings on the Job

A different directory, the same problem

Lewisham.co does not have a trades category, so there is no count of plumbers or builders to quote here. The directory does list 408 other businesses, and the point stands for tradespeople who serve them: the customer who rings at 8am is not going to wait until you finish at 5.

What goes wrong on a working day

A trade's enquiries tend to arrive in the middle of a job. Three things then happen:

• the message sits unanswered for hours
• the quote goes out late, or goes out and nobody chases it
• nobody remembers which postcodes you cover until the third reply

The areas on this directory use the SE13, SE4, SE12 and SE3 prefixes. If you cover several, the first job of an agent is simply to ask where the work is and whether it is within your patch.

What an agent can do

Dean Keating's website lists the jobs his agents handle:

• reply to new enquiries within minutes, day or night
• follow up every lead until they book or say no
• send quotes, and chase the ones nobody answered
• book jobs into the diary
• raise invoices and chase late payments
• send updates, confirmations and reminders

For a trade, the order of value is usually the first reply, then the quote chaser, then the invoice chaser. The first is about winning work and the other two are about getting paid.

What stays with you

Pricing a job, visiting a site and making a judgement about the work are yours. The agent collects the details you decide you need, such as postcode, a short description and a photo, and gets them to you in a clean form. Anything it cannot handle goes to a person.

How he works

His website describes a service installed for you, not handed over. The steps are a free call, an audit of the work worth automating, the build and install, then training and support. He starts with the one task that makes the most difference. There is no published price list. The cost is given after the free call with no obligation, and you leave with a plan you can use with or without him.

He also builds websites for trades and small businesses and does SEO, according to deankeating.com.

Distance

Dean works from Horndean, Hampshire, remotely, and says this works anywhere in the UK. He is not based in Lewisham. His website says he can visit businesses in Hampshire or nearby in person. If you want a provider on your doorstep, ask early and look at Lewisham-based ones too.

The council's report a problem guide may help if a customer's issue is really one for the council.

Contact

Call or WhatsApp Dean Keating on 07418 627304, or email dean@deankeating.com. See the Dean Keating profile on Lewisham.co. Websites: ai-agent.deankeating.com and deankeating.com.

About this guide

Lewisham.co is published by Dean Keating, who also runs the service described here. He is based in Horndean, Hampshire, not in Lewisham, and works with Lewisham and south-east London businesses remotely. This guide recommends our own service, so compare it with other providers before you decide.