Last October you tuned up a stack of furnaces. You flushed water heaters all summer and set a couple generators before storm season. Every one of those jobs needs the same work again, on a clock, and the equipment doesn't care how busy you are.
Here's the trouble. Nobody calls to book the repeat. You're buried on new work, the customer forgets a tune-up is even a thing, and the reminder that should go out never does. Then the first real cold night hits, the furnace quits at 6 AM, and they're on the phone with whoever answers first. That was your customer.
You already did the hard part. You earned that person, you know their equipment, and their address and number are sitting on an invoice or in a notebook somewhere. Last year's job list is the cheapest lead source you own, and most crews never touch it. Let's fix that.
The work that pays you twice
Not everything needs a reminder. But a surprising amount of what you already do runs on a schedule, and that's the stuff to catch.
- Furnace and boiler tune-ups. Once a year, before heating season. This is the big one in Massachusetts.
- AC and heat pump service. Once a year in spring, before the first hot stretch loads up your phone.
- Water heater flushes and anode checks. Yearly on a tank. Skip it long enough and it rusts out early, and they blame the guy who never told them.
- Generator service. Oil change and a run test on a schedule, ideally before storm season, not after the power's already out.
- Sump pumps. A quick check before the spring thaw and the heavy rain, especially in a triple-decker with a wet basement.
- Backflow testing. Plenty of towns want it done every year and will chase the homeowner for the paperwork. Be the one who reminds them first.
The pattern is simple. Any job where the same customer needs you back on a date you can predict belongs on this list. If you can guess the month it's due, it qualifies.
How far ahead to send it
Timing is the whole game. Send too early and they forget by the time it matters. Send too late and their furnace already died on a Sunday and they already called someone else.
- Heating tune-ups: reach out in early fall, September into October, before the first cold snap does your selling for you the hard way.
- Cooling service: late March into April, ahead of the spring rush that buries you every year.
- Water heaters, generators, sump pumps: a few weeks before the anniversary of the last time you were out.
A good rule of thumb is three to four weeks of lead time. That's enough for them to say yes and enough for you to fit the job into a week that isn't chaos.
What the text should actually say
Keep it short. It's a text between jobs, not a sales letter nobody reads. Use their name, name the exact piece of equipment you worked on, make one specific offer, and make the yes easy.
"Hi Dave, it's Mike from the shop. Your furnace is due for its yearly tune-up. Want me to grab you a slot the same week in October, before it gets cold? Reply YES and I'll lock it in."
That works for a few reasons, and every one of them matters:
- It names their furnace, not "our services," so it reads like a person who remembers the job.
- It gives a reason and a deadline (before it gets cold) without any scare tactics.
- It asks for a one-word reply. The easier the yes, the more you get.
Be honest about what a text can't do. It won't close a hesitant customer or handle a complicated schedule. It gets the conversation started, and a real person takes it from there.
Why last year's list beats any lead you can buy
Think about what a brand new customer costs you. Ad money, a lead service that charges per call, or a slow week of word of mouth. A cold prospect might not even know your name, and half the ones you buy are shopping three other trucks at the same time.
Now compare that to a text to someone whose basement you've already stood in. It costs you pennies to send, they trust you, and they book at a much higher rate because you're not a stranger. You don't need a study to see it. Rough it out for yourself: even a small slice of last year's list rebooking is real money you were leaving on the table, and it's money you already earned once.
Set it up so it runs without you
You don't want to be the one remembering to send these. The whole point is that it fires on its own while you're on a roof or under a sink.
- Log the service date every time. When you finish a tune-up or a flush, record the date, the customer, and what you did. This is the fuel for everything else.
- Set the reminder window. Tell the system to send eleven months out for a yearly job, or three weeks before heating season for furnaces. Set it once per job type.
- Automate the send. When a customer's date comes up, the text goes out with their name and their equipment filled in. No list to babysit.
- Route the replies to a human. A YES should land in front of whoever books your calendar, same day. A dead reminder that nobody follows up on is worse than none.
One honest caveat. This only works if the list is clean. Wrong number, wrong equipment, or a customer who moved, and you look sloppy. Spend an hour cleaning last year's names before you turn anything on.
Worth doing this week
You don't need fancy software to start proving this out. You need last year's jobs and a phone.
- Pull your furnace and boiler jobs from last fall. Just that list, nothing else yet.
- Sort them by service date so you know who's due first.
- Send ten of them the short text above this week, by hand, and see how many book.
- Once you've seen it work, set up the automatic version so it runs every year without you lifting a finger.
If wiring up the automatic piece feels like one more thing you'll never get to, that's the kind of setup we handle for trades around Massachusetts at Mass AI Agency. Either way, start with the list. It's already paid for.