The lost quarter — and why it stings more for sparks
Across the trades, around one in four enquiries is lost purely to a slow first reply. Customers message two or three electricians, get on with their day, and book whoever comes back first with a sensible answer. For a working sparky in a loft or halfway through a board change, you're usually not the one who replied in ninety seconds.
It stings more for electricians because your enquiries are often higher-value and time-sensitive — an EICR for a landlord with a deadline, an EV charger before the new car arrives, a tripping circuit that's worrying someone. Miss the first reply and you don't just lose a £90 job; you lose the relationship and every follow-on job that came with it.
Split your work into two piles
Every electrician's job book divides cleanly in two, and good automation respects the line between them:
Pile one — jobs you price the same way every time
These can be estimated the moment the enquiry lands, straight from your own rates:
- Extra socket or spur — your standard supply-and-fit range
- Light fitting or switch swap
- Fixed-price EICR for a standard 1–3 bed property
- Fault-finding visit — call-out fee, price after diagnosis
- Smoke/heat alarm install to a known spec
Pile two — jobs that always need your eyes first
These should never be auto-priced. The assistant gathers the details and photos, then routes the job straight to you to survey and quote:
- Full or partial rewire
- Consumer unit / fuse board upgrade
- EV charger installation (load assessment, DNO, cable run)
- Anything safety-critical — burning smell, exposed conductors, "the whole house has gone off"
- Commercial, three-phase, or anything outside your usual domestic work
This is exactly how a well-built quoting assistant behaves: it knows your standard jobs, and it knows your "always escalate" list. It quotes pile one and hands you pile two — with the photos already collected.
How automated WhatsApp quoting works for a spark
It sits on top of a WhatsApp business number and handles the front of every enquiry. A typical small job runs like this:
- Customer messages. "Hi, can you add two double sockets in my garage?" The assistant replies in seconds and asks for the detail it needs.
- It gets photos. A quick photo of the wall, the consumer unit, the run — the same things you'd ask for before committing to a number.
- It estimates on your rates for the standard stuff, makes clear it's an estimate, and says you'll confirm.
- It offers your slots and can take a holding deposit so the customer turns up.
- You approve the price — it lands on your phone, one tap to send. And for an EICR-plus-remedials or an EV charger, it doesn't guess; it books you a survey slot instead.
You can watch a 30-second demo of the whole flow — the customer's chat on one side, your approve-before-send screen on the other. (The demo uses a plumber's prices, but the logic is identical for a spark — swap the job list for yours.)
"It can't price electrical work — it's not that simple"
Correct, and that's the point. A quoting assistant that tried to price a rewire from a text would be dangerous, and no electrician would trust it. This one doesn't.
It never invents a number. It only estimates from the rules you set, and the jobs you mark as "needs my survey" are routed to you untouched. Even the everyday quotes don't go out until you approve them — the draft sits on your phone, you glance at it between jobs, tap to send or adjust the figure. You keep full control of every price with your name on it; you just stop losing the quick jobs to whoever replied first.
It quotes what you've told it it can quote, and escalates everything else to you — with the photos already in hand. That's not a robot pricing your work; it's a fast, polite first responder that knows its limits.
What it doesn't change
Your number stays yours — it runs on a separate business line, and you can switch it off whenever you want to take a chat yourself. Leads from Checkatrade, an NICEIC find-an-installer listing, a builder you work with or a neighbour's recommendation all land in the same place and get the same instant first reply. After the job, it can nudge the customer for a Google or Checkatrade review — the ones that win the next job and that you always mean to ask for.
Is it worth it?
If you're paying for leads, you're already paying for the enquiries you then miss. For an electrician, recovering a single EICR-plus-remedials or one EV charger install a month pays for the assistant many times over — before you count the evenings you stop spending typing quotes. The everyday extra-socket jobs it books while you're up a ladder are gravy.
It's being rolled out for plumbers first and electricians next. See how it works, including the price, on the WhatsApp Auto-Quote page, or tell us about your work and we'll build your standard-jobs list and your "always survey" list with you.
The one thing to do this week
Write two short lists: the jobs you'd happily ballpark over the phone, and the jobs you'd never price without seeing. That split is your ruleset — and it's exactly what makes automating the first reply safe for an electrician.