The follow-up system that turns slow EV enquiries into installs

If I had to pick one thing that single-handedly separates installers running £80k months from installers stuck at £20k months, it is not their website, their ads or their reviews. It is how fast they reply to a new enquiry and what happens after.

This is annoying because it is the most boring part of the operation. Nobody wakes up excited to set up SMS automations. But the maths is so heavily skewed in favour of the installer with the better follow-up system that ignoring it is genuinely throwing money in the bin.

01The 5-minute rule

Harvard Business Review studied 1.25 million leads across multiple industries. The headline finding: businesses that contacted a lead within 5 minutes were 21 times more likely to qualify the lead than those who waited 30 minutes. Twenty one times. Not 21% better. Twenty one times.

For EV installers specifically, the effect is even stronger. Customers contacting installers tend to fill in three or four enquiry forms in the same session. The first installer to reply with a real human voice almost always wins the install. The fourth installer to reply, even with a better quote, usually gets a polite "we've gone with someone else".

So the goal of your follow-up system is not "be faster than yesterday". It is "be faster than your competitors", and they are slow. Most installers reply in a couple of hours. Hitting under 30 minutes makes you remarkable. Hitting under 5 minutes during working hours makes you uncatchable.

02What "good" looks like, hour by hour

A working follow-up system has predictable touch points. Here is what the first 24 hours after an enquiry should look like:

• Within 60 seconds: An automated SMS and email confirming receipt of their enquiry, with a calendar link to book a 15-minute discovery call.
• Within 30 minutes (working hours): A real human reply by their preferred channel, answering their actual question, plus a question back to keep momentum.
• Within 4 hours: A booking confirmation if they have used the calendar link, or a polite nudge if they have not.
• End of day: An end-of-day status update if they are mid-quote, or an "I will be in touch first thing" if you are not.
• Day 2: A check-in if they have not booked yet, with a useful piece of info attached. "Forgot to mention, your area is on the Western Power Distribution network so the supply application takes about 6 weeks if upgrades are needed."

03The technology stack (under £100/mo)

You do not need enterprise software. The minimum viable stack:

1. A CRM with automation. HubSpot Free, GoHighLevel, or Pipedrive at £15/mo. The CRM holds the lead, triggers the automations, and reminds you to follow up.
2. An SMS gateway. Twilio (or a CRM with built-in SMS like GoHighLevel). Around £10/mo for the volume an installer does.
3. A calendar booking link. Cal.com or Calendly free tier. The link goes in your auto-acknowledge messages.
4. A simple Zapier or Make automation if your CRM does not natively talk to your website form. Free tier covers most installers.

Total: £25 to £80 a month depending on choices. Setup time: one Saturday. Payback: usually inside the first month from a single extra install you would have lost.

04The auto-reply that does most of the heavy lifting

This is the SMS that fires within 60 seconds of an enquiry coming in. Here is a template that I have used with installers and that converts well:

"Hi [first name], it's [your name] at [business]. Thanks for getting in touch about an EV charger install. I'll get back to you within the hour with a proper response. If you'd like to book a quick 15-minute chat right now, here's my calendar: [cal link]. Speak soon."

Three things that make this work:

• It feels personal (uses their name, says "it's [you]" not "thanks for contacting us").
• It sets a clear expectation (within the hour).
• It offers a way to book immediately for the 30% of customers who want to act now.

For the email version, same content but slightly longer. Add a one-line "while you wait, here is a link to our recent installs" with a portfolio page. Keeps them on your site instead of comparing competitors.

05The 14-day nurture sequence

Most installers stop following up after one or two messages. Then they wonder why their close rate is below 20%. The reality is, plenty of customers are not ready to commit on day 1. They are still researching, getting other quotes, waiting for a partner to agree. If you stop following up, the most patient installer wins. If you stay in their inbox politely for two weeks, you usually win.

The sequence I use, by day:

1. Day 1. The auto-reply (above) and the human reply.
2. Day 2. A short email or SMS with a useful piece of info specific to their situation.
3. Day 4. Send a 60-second video walkthrough of an install you did recently for a similar customer. Personalised in the first sentence ("thought this might be useful as you are looking at a 7kW install in [area]").
4. Day 7. Three quick FAQs you have heard from customers in similar situations. Plain text email. No pitch.
5. Day 10. A short check-in. "Just wanted to see if you had any other questions or if the timing has shifted. Happy to come back to you in a few weeks if it is easier."
6. Day 14. The "should I close your file?" message. Polite, gentle. "If you have decided to go elsewhere or hold off, no problem. Just let me know and I'll close the file. If you would like to keep the conversation open, no need to reply." Counter-intuitively, this gets more replies than any other message.

What to do after day 14

Move quiet leads into a quarterly check-in list. Once every three months, drop them a short, useful note. New product, new grant, useful blog post, "saw this and thought of you". One in six of those eventually book in. That is free pipeline for sending one email a quarter.

06The handful of templates that do most of the work

You only need a small library of templates to handle 80% of enquiries. Mine looks like this:

• Auto-acknowledge SMS. The 60-second template above.
• Auto-acknowledge email. Slightly longer with portfolio link.
• "Need more info" reply. Three short questions to qualify the lead (property type, current consumer unit, urgency).
• "Quote attached" reply. Sent after the survey, with a clear next step.
• Day 4 case study email. Loom or YouTube link to a similar install.
• Day 7 FAQ email. Three common questions and answers.
• Day 14 close-or-keep email. The polite "should I close your file?" message.
• Quarterly nurture email. One useful piece of info, no pitch.

Eight templates. That is the entire library. Once written, each gets reused dozens of times a month. The 30 minutes it takes to write each one pays back forever.

07The two metrics to watch

Track two numbers, weekly:

1. Time to first response. How many minutes between an enquiry coming in and the first human (or automated) message going out. Average across the week.
2. 14-day close rate. What percentage of enquiries received in week one converted to booked installs by day 14.

If both numbers are moving in the right direction, your follow-up system is healthy. If close rate stalls but reply time is fast, you have a quote / pricing problem. If reply time slips, the system has a leak.

08Common follow-up mistakes

• Only following up by email. Email open rates are 20-30%. SMS open rates are 95%+. Use both, with SMS taking priority for urgent messages.
• Chasing too aggressively. Following up daily for the first week is annoying. Day 1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 14 is the rhythm that works.
• Generic messages. "Just checking in" is the worst nurture line in marketing. Always include a specific reason for the message: a piece of info, an update, a question.
• Stopping at "no". A "no, we have gone elsewhere" is not the end. "Got it, fully respect that. If anything changes or the install runs into trouble, the door is open." Plus they go on the quarterly nurture list.
• Not measuring. If you cannot tell me your average reply time and 14-day close rate, you are flying blind. The fix is to start tracking, even on a spreadsheet, today.

09Your week-1 setup checklist

1. Pick a CRM. HubSpot Free is fine for installers under 50 installs a month.
2. Connect your website form to the CRM.
3. Write the eight templates. Steal from above and adapt to your voice.
4. Set up the auto-acknowledge SMS to fire on form submission.
5. Set up the 14-day sequence in the CRM with the right delays and triggers.
6. Set up a calendar booking link and put it in the auto-acknowledge.
7. Test the whole thing by submitting your own form. Nothing exposes a broken system faster.
8. Track time-to-response and close rate from this Monday onwards.

One Saturday. Two clear metrics. A 50 to 100% lift in close rate within two months for most installers who genuinely set this up properly. There is almost nothing else in the entire marketing stack with that ROI.