What is the difference between a CRM and job management software?
Job management software runs the work: customers and sites, quotes, scheduling, job notes, photos, invoices and the link to your accounting software. A CRM runs the relationship: where a lead came from, who is following it up, what stage it has reached, and what marketing the customer has agreed to receive. The two overlap at the customer record and the quote. Trade-focused job apps include enquiry features, which is why a small team may not need a separate CRM. Larger builders and commercial contractors with long sales cycles are more likely to.
What lead tracking does job software already include?
Check what your current software does before buying anything. ServiceM8's simple online enquiry form lets customers send a booking or quote request with an address, a job description and photos or documents. Requests arrive in the ServiceM8 Inbox and can be converted to a job with the customer details filled in and the attachments added to the job diary. Tradify's Enquiries feature takes requests from a web form or a forwarding email address, and its help centre covers capturing enquiries from Facebook, creating a QR code for the form, entering enquiries manually and actioning them. simPRO, Fergus and AroFlo have their own approaches, so check their current documentation.
When does a trade business need a separate CRM?
A CRM is worth considering when your job software cannot show you where your leads stand. The signs are practical: quotes that nobody followed up, the same lead called by two people, or no way to tell which advertising produced work. A CRM adds cost and another system to keep up to date, so it needs to solve a problem you can name. These situations are where a separate CRM tends to justify itself:
- Commercial work or tenders where a lead takes months to decide.
- Builders managing many renovation enquiries with long lead times.
- Marketing to past customers, which needs consent records under the spam rules.
- Several staff working the same pool of leads.
- Reporting on lead source and conversion that your job software does not offer.
Where do trade leads get lost before the quote?
Common places for leads to go missing are the gaps between channels. A call goes to voicemail and is never written down, an email enquiry sits in a personal inbox, a social media message is read on the weekend and forgotten, or a quote goes out with no follow-up date. A CRM does not fix these on its own. The fix is one intake point: every enquiry, from any channel, is recorded in one system on the day it arrives, with a source and a next action. Check each of these channels against that rule:
- Phone calls and voicemails, including after-hours calls.
- Website forms and emails sent to personal addresses.
- Social media messages.
- Referrals passed on by past customers or suppliers.
What customer information should you keep?
Keep what you need to quote, do and support the work, and protect it. The OAIC says most small businesses with an annual turnover of $3 million or less are not covered by the Privacy Act, although some are regardless of size, including health service providers and businesses that trade in personal information. It recommends that small businesses protect the personal information they hold as good practice. For a trade business, that means limiting who can export the customer list, removing access when staff leave, and keeping marketing consent records separate from job records, with who gave consent, when and how.
How does AI fit with a CRM or job software?
AI tools are most useful at the intake point. An AI phone answerer can create the enquiry record with a summary of the call, the suburb and the job type, so nothing depends on someone writing up a voicemail at night. AI can also flag quotes with no response after a set number of days and draft the follow-up for you to approve. When a product is sold as an 'AI-powered CRM' for tradies, ask which of these it does and where the records end up. Whatever you choose, keep one system of record for each enquiry, so the AI and your staff work from the same list.