CRM & Automation · Scaffolders
CRM for scaffolders, organised around the hire period not the enquiry
Scaffolding is the only trade on this site where the money is made after the job starts. The erect is the beginning of the revenue, not the end of it, and a CRM that stops at “won” is missing the part that pays.
In short
CRM & Automation for scaffolders in the UK needs a different build from an off-the-shelf CRM, and this is how PipelineOS structures it. Most scaffolding pipelines are built by someone who has never priced a hire, so they end at won. The real stages are enquiry, site visit or drawing, quoted, booked with an erect date, erected, on hire, off-hire requested, struck, invoiced. The first automation to switch on is Hire-period countdown: prevents both leaks: unbilled weeks where a scaffold stands free, and the awkward invoice nobody wants to raise because they missed the date. The most common way this goes wrong: a pipeline that ends at won.
How we build it
Most scaffolding pipelines are built by someone who has never priced a hire, so they end at won. The real stages are enquiry, site visit or drawing, quoted, booked with an erect date, erected, on hire, off-hire requested, struck, invoiced. On hire is a stage that can last eight weeks and quietly generate more margin than the erect did, and it is the stage nobody tracks. Domestic and contract work run as separate boards, because a homeowner wants a price today and a contracts manager wants a programme and a TG20-compliant drawing.
The hire clock is what the automation exists for. Erecting a scaffold sets a date, and from that date the system counts. At the end of the agreed hire period it prompts the office to raise the extension invoice and texts the client to say the hire period is ending on a stated date and to ask whether they need longer. That message is worth building for two opposite reasons: it catches the builder who has run over and forgotten, and it stops the scaffold standing for three unbilled weeks because nobody asked. A second prompt at week six asks the client directly whether they are ready to off-hire.
Off-hire is a form, not a phone call. The link goes out with every erect confirmation, and completing it drops the job into a strike list with the address, the postcode and the access notes already attached. The review request fires on the strike date, when the drive is clear and the customer is pleased, rather than on the erect date when the scaffold is still in the way. Contractor accounts get a separate quarterly nudge, because repeat commercial work is won by being remembered in week nine, not by being cheapest in week one.
What runs automatically
What fires, when, and what it stops you losing. Every one of these runs without anybody remembering to do it.
| Automation or stage | What triggers it | What it recovers |
|---|---|---|
| Hire-period countdown | The recorded erect date reaching the end of the agreed hire period | Prevents both leaks: unbilled weeks where a scaffold stands free, and the awkward invoice nobody wants to raise because they missed the date. |
| Off-hire request link | Sent automatically with the erect confirmation, completed by the client whenever they are ready | Recovers the strike that would otherwise wait for a voicemail, and frees kit that is earning nothing while sitting on a finished job. |
| Strike-day review request | Job status moving to struck, sent a couple of hours after the lorry leaves | Asks at the only moment the customer is unambiguously happy. Asking on erect day gets a review about a scaffold that is still blocking the path. |
| Contractor re-engagement | Ninety days since the last job for a contact tagged as a builder or main contractor | Recovers the repeat account that drifted to a competitor while nobody rang. One regained builder is worth more than a year of domestic enquiries. |
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Call 07443 392243WhatsAppWhat the build involves
The build is mostly definition rather than configuration: agreeing what your hire period actually is, whether extensions are billed weekly or monthly, who is allowed to authorise an off-hire, and what the drawing and design stage is called on the commercial board. Then the two boards, the erect and strike date fields, the off-hire form, and the message templates. Platform subscription is typically £50–£120 a month, covering the pipeline, the automated texts and emails, the calendar and the forms, with a modest usage element if you send a lot of messages.
The arithmetic here is not about enquiries at all. Weekly domestic hire extension is commonly £30–£80, and commercial hire on a large frontage considerably more. A firm running twenty-five live scaffolds that loses an average of two unbilled weeks on a quarter of them is giving away a meaningful four-figure sum a year in revenue it has already earned, in kit it has already paid for. Add the recovered strikes — kit released a fortnight earlier is kit available for the next job without buying more — and the hire clock alone justifies the system before a single new enquiry is counted.
Four ways this goes wrong
- A pipeline that ends at won. The erect is halfway through the revenue, and everything after it is being tracked on a whiteboard or in somebody’s head.
- Waiting for the builder to ring about off-hire. He will not, because the scaffold is no longer his problem, and your kit stands idle for three weeks earning nothing.
- Asking for a review the day the scaffold goes up. You are asking a customer to praise you while a lorry is parked across their drive and the tower is against their bedroom window.
- Running domestic and contract enquiries through one board. Domestic moves in two days and contract in two months, so the commercial jobs look stalled and get chased as though somebody is ignoring you.
The two pages behind this one
This page is the intersection. For the wider picture:
CRM & Automation in general
Everything about marketing for scaffolders
Questions
What does the CRM need to know about the hire period?
Three dates and one number: the erect date, the agreed hire period in weeks, the expected strike date, and the weekly extension rate. Everything else follows from those. The system counts forward from the erect date, warns the office before the period ends, and gives you a single view of which scaffolds are past their agreed period and are therefore either billable or recoverable.
Will this work if we invoice through separate accounts software?
Yes, and that is the usual arrangement. The CRM tracks the hire clock and tells you when an extension is due; the invoice itself is raised wherever you raise invoices now. What changes is that the prompt appears on the right day rather than being noticed when someone reconciles the month and finds a scaffold that has been up since April.
Is the contractor follow-up not just nagging?
Not at ninety days, and not if it says something. A message that asks what is on site for the next quarter and mentions the kit you have free is a business conversation, and builders take it as one. The version that annoys people is monthly, generic and clearly automated, which is why the sequence is quarterly and written to be answered.
Related
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