The first to answer wins the job.

Each job, its length and deposit

Unblocking a drain does not take as long as fitting a water heater, and a quotation visit is not a job at all. As long as your customer only picks an hour, your day is wrong from the second appointment on: you turn up late to the next one, and you end up ringing round to push everything back.

In Traxo, every job carries its real length, its deposit and the travel time that goes with it. The customer picks a job, not an empty slot, and the calendar works out the rest. Two customers can no longer land on the same hour.

• Two emergency slots held back each morning, released if they go unused
• A minimum notice before booking: nobody books for ten minutes' time
• Travel time added automatically between two addresses

The six o'clock call is not lost

A leak cannot wait until tomorrow: the customer rings round until somebody answers. If you are already on a job, he is with your competitor in three minutes — and there is no ringing back, the work has gone.

The AI receptionist answers in your name, takes the address, what is leaking and whether the water is off. It gives a realistic timescale and offers your emergency slot when it is free. You get a four-line summary, and more often than not the job is already booked by the time you read it.

Quote from the van, date held

After the visit, the quote is put together on your phone from your usual line items — labour, materials, travel — and the customer signs it online that same evening. A quote sent the same day gets signed far more often than one sent the following weekend.

The deposit is asked for on signing. It is what pays for the materials and what makes the date real. If nothing moves after seven days, the chaser goes out on its own, politely, without you having to ask.

• A price range shown before the visit: the out-of-budget jobs filter themselves out
• Signed online, deposit paid by card
• Balance taken on site or by payment link, your choice

Reviews that win the next job

People pick a plumber in a hurry, on what they see first: a rating, a number of reviews, a photo of a tidy job. Your happy customers never think to write anything, and asking face to face on the doorstep makes everyone uncomfortable.

The request goes out by text the next day, with a direct link to your listing. An unhappy customer is sent back to you before he posts: you ring, you sort it, and the incident never shows up in public.