# CRM for plumbers and electricians: what you actually need (and what you don't) URL: https://up2.digital/solutions/losing-leads/trades/crm-for-plumbers-and-electricians > Most CRM advice is written for office sales teams. Here's the shorter list a trade business actually needs, and the features worth ignoring. ## The short answer A trade business needs a CRM for one main job: catching every enquiry, from a phone call, a web form, Facebook or a lead platform, in one pipeline with automatic follow-up reminders, so nothing goes quiet because nobody remembered. It doesn't need lead scoring, deal forecasting, marketing automation or any of the features built for an office sales team chasing six-figure contracts over months. Most generic CRM advice is written for that kind of sales team, not a plumber or electrician juggling several small jobs a week, which is why it's worth being specific about what actually matters before paying for, or getting distracted by, the rest. ## What a trade business actually needs from a CRM The core job is simple to describe: every enquiry lands in one place, however it arrived, and moves through a small number of stages that match how work actually happens, new enquiry, needs a site visit, quoted, waiting on the customer, booked in, done, invoiced. Anyone in the firm can see at a glance what's stuck and for how long. A reminder nudges someone if a lead's gone quiet for a day or two, so following up happens on a schedule rather than whenever someone remembers. That's genuinely most of it. Everything else is either a nice extra or built for a different kind of business entirely. ## CRM vs job-management software, they're not the same thing This is the single most common confusion in how this gets searched and sold. Tools like Tradify, ServiceM8 and Jobber are job-management software: once a job exists, they schedule it, hold the job sheet, track materials and raise the invoice, and they're genuinely good at that. A CRM's job is earlier and different, tracking an enquiry before it's a job at all, while it's still a phone call, a message or a form submission that hasn't been decided yet. Several generic "best CRM for trades" articles blur the two together, recommending job-management tools as CRMs because they technically hold a customer list. A customer list isn't a pipeline. The practical answer for most trade businesses is both, a CRM pipeline to catch and follow up every enquiry, connected through to whichever job-management tool runs the work once it's won, rather than trying to make one tool do both jobs badly. ## The features that matter **Pipeline stages that match a trade's actual workflow**, not a generic sales funnel borrowed from software sales. **Mobile use that actually works from a van**, with a a thumb and patchy signal, not a desktop-first tool that's painful on a phone. **Simple, automatic reminders** when a lead's gone quiet, rather than relying on anyone's memory between jobs. **One place for every channel**, so a Checkatrade message, a web form submission and a missed call all land in the same pipeline instead of three separate inboxes with three separate logins. **A clean connection to your job-management tool**, so a won enquiry becomes a scheduled job without retyping the customer's details. ## The features you can ignore Lead scoring, the automatic ranking of how "hot" a lead is based on behaviour, is built for a sales team working hundreds of leads a month at a company big enough to need the triage. A trade business handling a sensible number of enquiries a week doesn't need software to tell it which customer to call first, that's usually obvious. Deal forecasting and revenue pipelines by quarter are built for a board report, not a plumber's Tuesday. Marketing automation, drip email sequences, lead nurturing campaigns, is aimed at a buying process that takes months, which doesn't describe most domestic trade work, where a customer wants a quote this week, not a nurture sequence over six months. Paying for, or getting distracted configuring, any of this is the main way a trade business ends up with a CRM that feels like overkill and stops getting used. ## What it costs to set up properly A CRM set up around how a trade business actually works, with enquiry pipeline stages, automatic follow-up reminders and every channel pulled into one place, is a guide price from £900. If you're moving off spreadsheets, a notebook, or scattered contacts across email and WhatsApp, importing that existing history in cleanly is a guide price from £300 on top. Where only the enquiry pipeline and reminders are needed, without a full CRM overhaul, that's a guide price from £400 on its own. These are guide prices for a typical setup, with the fixed quote following a free 30-minute call once we know your current channels and how much existing customer history needs moving across. ## When to get help, and what we'd do If enquiries already come in from more than one place, phone, a web form, Checkatrade, Facebook, that's usually the point a proper pipeline earns its cost, because the risk isn't any single channel failing, it's one of several quietly going unwatched. We'd set up [a CRM configured around your actual workflow](/services/crm), with stages that match how a job really moves rather than a generic template, every enquiry channel pulled into the same place, and your existing contacts and job history imported rather than left behind in a spreadsheet. Where you're also choosing or switching job-management software, we'd connect the two so a won enquiry becomes a scheduled job without double entry. For the general version of choosing a CRM, see [how to choose a CRM for a small business](/guides/choosing-a-crm-small-business) and [what is a CRM? A plain-English guide](/guides/what-is-a-crm). See the wider picture on [enquiries slipping through the cracks for trade businesses](/solutions/losing-leads/trades). ## Frequently asked questions ### Isn't my job-management software already a CRM? Not really. Tools like Tradify, ServiceM8 and Jobber hold a customer list and run a job once it exists, but they're not built to catch and chase an enquiry before it's become a job, which is a CRM's actual job. ### Do I need both a CRM and job-management software? Most trade businesses with more than one enquiry channel do, yes, a CRM pipeline for everything before a job is won, connected through to whichever job-management tool runs the work afterwards. A very small, single-channel operation might manage with just one or the other for a while. ### What's the minimum CRM setup actually worth paying for? An enquiry pipeline with automatic follow-up reminders, pulling in your main enquiry channels, covers most of the value. Lead scoring, forecasting and marketing automation are built for a different kind of business and rarely earn their cost for a trade firm. ### How long does setting a proper CRM up actually take? A pipeline and reminder setup typically takes one to two weeks. A fuller CRM setup with every channel connected and existing contacts imported usually takes a little longer, depending on how much history needs moving across cleanly. ### Will my team actually use a CRM, or will it end up like the old notebook? That mostly comes down to whether the stages match how the team already thinks about a job. A pipeline built around generic sales stages gets ignored quickly; one built around new enquiry, quoted, booked, invoiced tends to get used because it matches what people were already doing in their heads.