A pipeline that matches how HVAC work actually flows
Most CRMs ship with a generic sales pipeline borrowed from B2B software: “prospect, qualified, demo, proposal, won.” That’s not a service-business workflow. An HVAC job has its own arc — from first inquiry to invoice paid to review left — and it cuts across both the office and the field tech.
The snapshot ships with a Service-Sold-Reviewed pipeline that mirrors what actually happens between the phone ringing and the homeowner posting a Google review.
The seven stages
- Lead — any new inbound from any channel: web form, AI receptionist, Facebook ad, missed-call text-back, referral. Auto-stamped with source.
- Quoted — a tech has been dispatched and provided an estimate, or the office has quoted by phone. Contains the quoted amount, service type, and equipment scope.
- Scheduled — the homeowner has accepted and a slot is on the dispatch board. Triggers the pre-appointment SMS confirmation.
- In Progress — the tech is on-site or the install crew is mid-job. Visible to dispatch so they can route the next call appropriately.
- Won — work is complete and signed off by the homeowner. Triggers invoice creation if not already issued.
- Invoiced — payment captured (card on file, payment link, or in-home). Triggers the financial close on the job.
- Reviewed — the Review Engine workflow has run and the homeowner has either left a review or hit the end of the sequence.
A homeowner doesn’t have to move through every stage — small repairs collapse Quote and Scheduled into one tap. But the structure is always there.
Per-stage automation
The pipeline isn’t just a Kanban board. Each stage has its own automation set firing the right action at the right moment:
- Lead → Quoted — pre-quote pre-call SMS to confirm the appointment, auto-populates the tech’s tablet with prior service history.
- Quoted → Scheduled — quote acceptance confirmation, calendar invite to the homeowner, dispatch-board entry on the right tech.
- Scheduled → In Progress — 24-hour-out and 1-hour-out reminder SMS, tech on-the-way SMS with photo and ETA.
- In Progress → Won — payment-capture link sent in-home, post-job summary auto-drafted from tech notes.
- Won → Invoiced — receipt to homeowner, accounting export to QuickBooks or your bookkeeping system.
- Invoiced → Reviewed — 90-minute delay then the Review Engine SMS fires.
The office manager stops being a pipeline mover and starts being a pipeline auditor — looking at exceptions, not pushing every card across the board manually.
What you see at a glance
- Stuck deals — any contact in a stage longer than the threshold (e.g., Quoted > 14 days) auto-flags for follow-up.
- Pipeline value by stage — open quote-value, scheduled-value, in-progress-value. Owner can forecast the next 30-60 days from the board.
- Tech utilization — how many jobs each tech has in-progress and won this week. Identifies the under-loaded and the over-loaded.
- Source attribution — which channels (Google, Facebook ads, referrals, organic) are feeding the pipeline and at what conversion rate.
What this saves the office
Most shops run their pipeline on a paper board, a shared spreadsheet, or memory. Deals fall through the cracks; quotes sent two weeks ago never get a follow-up; jobs marked “won” never get invoiced because nobody told accounting.
With the Smart Pipeline:
- Quote-to-close rate goes up 15-25% because nothing sits in “Quoted” without a nudge.
- Days-to-invoice drops dramatically because invoice generation triggers on the Won transition, not on someone remembering Monday morning.
- Review rate goes up because the Reviewed stage is enforced by the automation, not by the tech remembering to ask.
Wires into the entire snapshot
Every other module in the snapshot reads and writes against the Smart Pipeline:
- AI Receptionist creates contacts at Lead stage.
- Dispatch & Scheduling moves contacts to Scheduled and In Progress.
- Review Engine handles the Reviewed transition.
- Maintenance Plan Renewals operates as a parallel recurring pipeline.
It’s the spine the rest of the snapshot hangs off.