Internal tools
The spreadsheet that runs your business, built properly.
Nearly every established business has one: a file, a whiteboard or a shared document that holds the thing everything else depends on. It works, right up until two people edit it, or the person who built it is on holiday.
An enquiry at midnight
The form on your website at 11:58pm, and what happens to it.
- Trigger
Form submitted
11:58pm. Name, email, and a paragraph about a leaking roof.
- Action
Instant acknowledgement
Not a pretend conversation. A short note saying it arrived and when they will hear back.
- Logic
Sorted and tagged
Read for job type, urgency words and location, then filed.
- Decision
Is this urgent?
"Leaking" and "tonight" both present.
- Urgent, wake somebodytaken
- Normal, sits until morning
- Action
You get told properly
A phone alert that says what it is, not "you have a new form submission".
- Result
On the board by morning
In the list with everything else, with the clock already running on it.
- 23:58:41form submit · source: website /contact
- 23:58:43acknowledgement sent · "back to you before 9am"
- 23:58:43classified: roofing · leak · Blenheim
- 23:58:43urgency: HIGH (matched "leaking", "tonight")
- 23:58:44notified: push · "URGENT roof leak, Blenheim, 027 ••• 4410"
- 23:58:44enquiry #4822 open · first response clock started
Demonstration of a system of this shape that we have built. Times, numbers and names invented.
The workflow above is the enquiry chain a tool like this sits behind. Times, numbers and names are invented.
What gets built
Whatever the business actually runs on. In practice that has been things like:
- A job board that shows what is on today, who is on it and what is blocked
- A stock or vehicle list that is the same list the website reads from
- Customer records with the history attached, so nobody asks a returning customer their address
- A quote register that knows which ones have gone quiet
- A dashboard that answers the one question you ask every Monday morning
The rule that keeps these useful
One screen, one question. The tools that get abandoned are the ones that tried to be everything, so nobody could learn them in a morning. The ones that survive replace a specific piece of squinting with a specific piece of clarity.
Built on the boring stack, deliberately
Ordinary web technology, on infrastructure you can point at, with the data in a format you can export today. No proprietary platform, no per-seat licence that grows with your team, and nothing that stops working if you stop working with us.
How it usually goes
Look at what you do now, including the spreadsheet and the sticky notes. Build the single smallest thing that removes the most annoying part. Use it for a fortnight. Then decide what is next based on what you actually reach for, rather than on a plan written before anyone had used anything.
Questions
Before you ask.
- Is this an off-the-shelf CRM?
- No. Off-the-shelf software is the right answer surprisingly often and you will be told when it is. This is for the case where your business does something specific enough that every product makes you work around it.
- Who owns it?
- You do. The code, the data and the accounts. It is built on ordinary web technology and any competent developer can pick it up, which is the point.
- What happens to my existing spreadsheet?
- It gets read, understood and brought across, including the conventions in it that nobody wrote down. That archaeology is usually the most valuable part of the job.
- How big does this get?
- It should start small and boring: one screen that replaces the thing you currently squint at. Anything bigger than that on day one is a project that never ships.
What is the file everything depends on?
Most businesses can name it instantly. That answer is usually where this starts.