The split
Callouts, small remedial work and single-circuit jobs convert fast or not at all. The customer has a problem now, they have called two or three people, and the decision is made within about forty-eight hours on availability as much as price.
Rewires, consumer unit replacements, EV chargers and anything driven by an EICR report behave completely differently. The customer is not in a hurry, the number is large enough to be a household discussion, and the decision takes between two weeks and never.
A single follow-up sequence across both produces messages that are too slow for the first group and too fast for the second, which is a fair description of what most electricians currently do — nothing for either.
The two halves, quoted separately
One two-van domestic firm's year, split by job type. Their numbers, their definitions, shared for this page.
| Job type | Quotes | Won | Rate | Avg value | Median days to decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Callout and remedial | 184 | 118 | 64% | £240 | 1 |
| Single circuit, sockets, lighting | 121 | 62 | 51% | £520 | 3 |
| EV charger | 77 | 23 | 30% | £1,150 | 16 |
| Consumer unit | 68 | 24 | 35% | £980 | 11 |
| Full or partial rewire | 41 | 9 | 22% | £4,700 | 34 |
| Blended | 491 | 236 | 48% | £790 | 6 |
Source: One UK domestic electrical firm's own twelve months, shared for this page and rounded. A single business, not a benchmark.
The blended row is the number this firm quoted to anyone who asked, and it describes none of their five businesses. The rewire line — 22% on £4,700 — is where nearly half their revenue sat and where they were following up least.
Two sequences, not one
The split is by value and by decision speed, and for electrical work those track each other closely enough to use a single threshold.
- 1
Under about £800: one message, fast
Day 2, and that is the whole sequence. "Sent that over yesterday — can fit you in Thursday if it suits."
Availability converts this half far more than price does. The customer has three quotes and is choosing the one that can come soonest, so the useful content of the follow-up is a date rather than a discount.
- 2
Over about £800: the full three, spaced wider
Day 5, day 14, day 30. Slower than the standard sequence because the decision genuinely is slower.
Sending the day-3 message on a rewire quote arrives while the household is still reading it. Five days is the point where a check-in reads as attentive rather than anxious.
- 3
EICR-driven work: reference the report, not the price
"The C2 on the bathroom circuit is the one worth doing before anything else — happy to do just that if the full number is too much right now."
This is the highest-converting follow-up available to a domestic electrician and almost nobody sends it. The customer is holding a document full of codes they do not understand, and the message that translates one of them wins the job.
- 4
Landlord and letting agent work: chase the deadline, not the customer
Certificates have expiry dates. "Your EICR runs out on the 14th" is not a follow-up, it is a service, and it is answered.
Agents manage dozens of properties and genuinely lose track. An electrician who tracks their expiry dates gets the work without competing on price at all.
Two thresholds, four behaviours, and none of it is complicated. What makes it not happen is that it requires knowing which quotes are still open, which is the thing nobody has a list of.
Electrical-specific things worth doing
Six, in rough order of how much they are worth.
- Track EICR expiry dates for every landlord you have worked forA five-year clock, and the person on the other end has forgotten it exists. This is the single highest-return list a domestic electrician can keep and it takes a spreadsheet.
- Split your win rate by job type before believing itThe blended number in the table above is 48% and describes nothing. The rewire number is 22% and is the one worth working on.
- Quote remedial work in stages, priced separatelyA £4,700 rewire is a decision. Four items at £600–1,400 each are four decisions, and customers who cannot make the first one frequently make the second.
- Put availability in the follow-up on small workOn a callout you are competing on when, not how much. A message with a date beats a message with a reassurance.
- Explain one code from the EICR, not all of themA follow-up that translates the C2 into a sentence of English does more work than the entire quote document. Explaining all of them reads as a sales pitch.
- Do not chase an EV charger quote on priceThose decisions are usually waiting on a car delivery, a grant, or a driveway. The right follow-up asks when the car arrives, which turns a dead quote into a diarised one.
Objections
- My callout work converts fine without any of this.
- It does, and the table above says so — 64% and a one-day decision. The argument is not about that half of your business. It is that the half converting at 22% is where most of your revenue is and where you are following up least, because the small jobs are loud and the big ones are quiet.
- Rewire customers are just getting three quotes. Following up will not change that.
- It changes which of the three they remember, which is not nothing when the prices are within ten per cent of each other. It also surfaces the ones who chose you weeks ago and never said.
- Landlords come back anyway when the certificate expires.
- Some do. The ones who do not are the ones whose letting agent changed, and an agent taking over a portfolio hands the work to whoever they already use unless somebody gets there first with a date.
- I would rather spend the time quoting more work.
- Sensible when your quote volume is the constraint, and it usually is not. Quoting a new job takes a site visit and an evening; recovering one that already exists takes a message, and the second one has an enormously better return per hour.
Tell me when this exists
In the context field: your split between small work and big work, roughly.