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How LocalWins works

Everything in plain steps. Can't find it? Ask the chat in the corner, message us on WhatsApp, or email hello@localwins.co.uk.

Every missed call gets a text back

Your LocalWins number texts every caller you miss within seconds, in your business name, and finds out what they need.

  1. 1You keep your own number. Calls you don't answer are forwarded to your LocalWins number (set up once with a tap on your phone, see Switching on forwarding).
  2. 2Within seconds the caller gets a text in your business name: sorry we missed your call, what can we help with?
  3. 3Our AI carries on the text conversation for you: it asks what the job is, the postcode and when they need it. It never promises that you'll ring at a set time, never quotes a price you haven't given it, and never turns work away.
  4. 4Once the job is clear you get the lead: who, what, where, when and their number, with a link to the full chat. It comes on WhatsApp if you agreed to that when you signed up, otherwise by text. You can change it on the AI setup page.
  5. 5A lead that comes in between 9pm and 7:30am waits until 7:30am so it doesn't wake you, unless it is urgent (a leak, no heating, a safety problem), which comes at once.
  6. 6Someone you know (a friend, a supplier) is texted once at most. Mark them as known and they are never texted again.
  7. 7With your calendar connected, callers can book a time by text. They get one text with a link to their booking, where they can add it to their own calendar, move it (twice at most) or cancel it, and they can move or cancel by text too. They get a reminder the evening before and another about 2 hours before, and replying MOVE sends them their booking link. You get one text saying what changed, and your calendar is updated. The lead summary you get says when they booked, and if we ever can't read your calendar we text you once to reconnect it.
  8. 8If a caller writes in another language, the reply is in their language where a text can carry it, and your lead is always in English.
  9. 9If a caller asks something we don't know, we text you the question once. Reply ANSWER and what to say, and we use it next time.
Does the text come from my number?

It comes from your LocalWins number, in your business name. Replies come back to that number and you see them all in your dashboard and in your alerts.

Can I change what the text says?

Yes: Settings, Messages. Changes go live at once.

Can I reply to the customer myself?

Yes. On WhatsApp, swipe right on the alert about them and type. By text, reply to the alert. Or just ring them: the number is in the alert. The AI steps back as soon as you reply.

Switching on forwarding

Forwarding sends the calls you don't answer to your LocalWins number. It is set up once, from your phone.

  1. 1Open the forwarding page in your dashboard on the phone your business number is on. For a mobile, pick your phone (iPhone, Samsung or another Android) and check the mobile number. We check which network it is on and get the right codes ready.
  2. 2Tap each button in turn. Each one opens your dialler with the code filled in: press call. On EE, O2 and Vodafone there is a first button that clears old settings.
  3. 3About two minutes later we ring that number to test it and tell you if it worked. If it went to voicemail, the page shows you what to try next.
  4. 4On a computer? Press Text the buttons to my mobile and do it from there.
  5. 5Trades whose calls reach us are offered LocalWins Jobs before those whose calls don't.
My calls still go to voicemail

Your voicemail is answering first. Press the buttons again from the forwarding page, and on an iPhone turn off Live Voicemail (Settings, Apps, Phone). If it still fails, book a quick call from the forwarding page and Paul will sort it with you.

How do I switch it off?

On a mobile, dial ##61# from that phone and press call. On a landline, #61#. Any trouble, message us on WhatsApp.

Updating a lead from WhatsApp or text

Tell us how each lead went with a tap or a word. It keeps your list tidy, asks for reviews at the right time and books repeat work.

  1. 1On WhatsApp, each lead has buttons: Dealt with, then Won the job, Sent a quote or Not a job.
  2. 2By text, or if you prefer typing, reply with one of the words below to the alert about that caller. Add their number if the alert isn't the latest one (WON 07700 900123).
  3. 3Won means you got the job. It does not ask the customer for a review: the review text only goes once you tell us the work is finished.
SendWhat it does
WON (or WON 450)You got the job. Add the amount if you like, for your weekly figures.
QUOTED (or QUOTED 450)You've given them a price. We remind you to chase it after 3 days unless a LocalWins quote already does.
FINISHEDThe work is done: we text them once asking for a Google review.
LOSTThey went elsewhere or it didn't happen.
NOT A JOBNot work (a supplier, a wrong number).
DONEYou've dealt with it, outcome to follow.
BOOKEDStill works if you prefer it: you got the job and it is booked in.
PASSYou can't do it: we ask the caller, and if they agree it goes to other local trades. It moves you up for the jobs that come back out.
KEEP / TAKEKEEP: never offer this customer to anyone else. TAKE: you'll ring them.
KNOWN 07700 900123Someone you know (a friend, a supplier): never texted again. UNKNOWN undoes it.
ASK <question>Every new caller gets asked it, e.g. ASK are you the homeowner? STOP ASKING <word> stops it.
ANSWER <what to say>When we text you a question a caller asked that we couldn't answer, reply ANSWER and what to say. We use it next time.
CHATSends you the whole conversation.
MY DAYA rundown of today: bookings, quotes and who's waiting on you.
SMS (on WhatsApp)Get your alerts by text instead. To move back to WhatsApp, message the LocalWins WhatsApp or change it on the AI setup page.
HELPThe list of words, sent to you.

Google reviews

We ask happy customers for a Google review once the work is finished, never before, and never twice.

  1. 1When you reply FINISHED (or press Job finished in the dashboard, or enter the final invoice amount), the customer gets one text in your name with your Google review link.
  2. 2If you marked a job Won but never said it was finished, we ask you once, a few days later: is it finished?
  3. 3Every customer gets the same link whatever they think of you. We never filter out unhappy customers and never offer anything for a review.

LocalWins Jobs: homeowner jobs offered to you

Homeowners post jobs with LocalWins and other trades pass on work they can't fit in. Each job is offered to a few trades nearby who do that work.

  1. 1You choose your trades and how far you travel on the Jobs page.
  2. 2A job near you comes by WhatsApp or text with the job, where it is and how many places are left. Reply JOB 123 YES to take it or JOB 123 NO.
  3. 3Take it and you get the homeowner's details to ring them. First come, first served.
  4. 4Local homeowner jobs are a member benefit, included in your plan. Pro members see them first, then Growth members.
  5. 5Can't do one you took after all? Reply JOB 123 NO and it goes straight back out. You're thanked, not penalised.
  6. 6A second person can take jobs for you: add their mobile on the Jobs page.
  7. 7Spotted other work while you were there? Text SPOTTED and what you saw: we ask the homeowner and, if they want it done, pass it on, which moves you up the list.
SendWhat it does
JOB 123 YES / JOB 123 NOTake or turn down job 123.
JOB 123 DONEThe job is finished: the homeowner is asked for a review.
JOB 123 NOT A JOBIt wasn't a real job: we check with the poster and stop offering it.
SPOTTED <what you saw>Other work at a job you took, offered with the homeowner's yes.
How many jobs will I get?

It depends on homeowners posting in your area and trades. Nobody can promise a number. Switching on forwarding and taking jobs quickly both move you up the list.

Quotes by text

Send a proper written quote from your phone in a minute, priced from your own prices first. Your customer accepts it online and pays the deposit, and later the balance invoice, by bank transfer or by card.

  1. 1Switch it on at Quotes in your dashboard.
  2. 2Text QUOTE, the customer's mobile and the job, e.g. QUOTE 07700 900123 new combi boiler SO23 7QX. Or tap New quote.
  3. 3Been to see the job? Tap New quote and add your site visit: record yourself walking round and talking it through (voice or a short video) and add photos. We write up the work with the sizes you said, then price it the same way. You can show the walkround video on the quote.
  4. 4We draft it from your own prices, then UK guide prices for anything you haven't priced, marked for you to check. Change any figure, or type what to change. Lines still without a price? Press Price them from my list and the guide.
  5. 5Add photos or a short video of the job to the quote. We read them to work out the lines, and you tick which photos show on the quote.
  6. 6Pick Quote (a fixed price), Estimate (your best guess) or Tender for a bigger job: the work in sections with a total each, the scope of works, what's included and not, how long it takes and a payment schedule. Write the tender for me drafts it from your description and photos for you to check.
  7. 7Beside the quote you see exactly what your customer will see, updating as you type (a Preview tab on a phone).
  8. 8Nothing goes until you press Send and tick that you've checked every price. The customer gets the link on WhatsApp when they've messaged you there (and your WhatsApp line is on), otherwise by text, and a copy by email if you've added their email. They read and accept it online, with a deposit if you ask for one.
  9. 9Offer a start date on the quote if you like: once they accept, one tap confirms it, or they pick another date and we text you. Reply START, the quote number and the date (START Q14 18/11) to confirm one you agreed by phone.
  10. 10Quiet quotes are chased for you: once after 2 days if not opened, and once more 4 days later. Never more.
  11. 11Stage payments: set the stages under Getting paid (a tender's payment schedule, or a quote's stage payments like 40% at start, 40% halfway, 20% on completion). Once they accept, press Ask for it beside a stage on the quote, or reply STAGE Q14 2 for stage 2 (STAGE Q14 for the next one, STAGE Q14 £500 for an amount). They get a link to pay by card or bank transfer.
  12. 12Every quote and pay link shows what has been paid so far and what is left to pay. Paid some another way (part of it, cash, or a transfer we didn't match)? Record it on the quote, or text PAID Q14 500 (PAID Q14 250 CASH for cash).

Work near you

Planning applications near you, and once you have gone live on a paid plan, businesses near you that need what you do. Leads to approach yourself, not booked jobs.

  1. 1Planning applications for work you do, within the distance you travel, a few times a week. The best three are in your Monday email.
  2. 2Once you have gone live on a paid plan: businesses that buy what you do, with an email written in your name ready to send from your own email.
  3. 3Print a letter to any planning lead free, or have us post it for you (paid per letter, shown before you send).

Your Monday Business Review

One email every Monday: callers texted back, enquiries, jobs offered, quotes, your Google profile and work near you.

  1. 1Every figure in it is counted from what really happened that week. Nothing is estimated or invented.

Plans and prices

Signing up is free. Paying for the first month switches on your own number.

  1. 1Pro is £199 a month plus your advert budget, from £150. No setup fee. No contract. Everything in Growth, plus your own adverts on Google, Facebook and Instagram in your business name, set up, tested and run for you (you choose the advert budget, added to the same bill), and landlord, letting agent and block manager jobs included.
  2. 2Growth, £99 a month: your own number texting back every missed caller, LocalWins Jobs offers, quotes by text and your Google profile looked after.
  3. 3Add a website to Growth for £50 a month. A website we build, host and look after for you.
  4. 4Cancel any time from your dashboard. No setup fee and no contract.

Pausing or cancelling

Pause for a holiday or cancel any time from Settings.

  1. 1Settings, Pause my account keeps your number reserved while you're away.
  2. 2Settings, Pausing or cancelling to cancel. Cancelling ends your job offers and your number's text back.

Ring back brief and the To do list

Each new lead comes as a ring back brief, and one list shows everything waiting on you.

  1. 1A new lead reads: New lead: Sarah. Leaking tap under the sink. Postcode SO23 9AB. When: tomorrow morning. Ring: 07700 900123.
  2. 2If a new caller's lead is still not updated three working hours later, we text you once: did you speak to Sarah? Reply WON, QUOTED or LOST.
  3. 3To do in your dashboard lists callers to ring back, quotes to chase, drafts to send, unpaid deposits, tomorrow's bookings and finished jobs waiting on a review ask. Items close themselves when the thing behind them moves on.
  4. 4Switch on MY DAY on the To do page for a text at 7am, Monday to Saturday, when something is due.

Past customers and due-again reminders

Add your old customers and we remind each one in your name when their service or certificate is due, then tell you.

  1. 1On Past customers (from Win-back), upload a spreadsheet saved as CSV, your phone contacts (.vcf), or paste one customer a line: name, mobile, the job and when you did it.
  2. 2We work out when each one is due again: boiler services and landlord gas safety every year, electrical safety checks (EICR) every five years, and so on.
  3. 3Ahead of each date we text them in your name so there's time to book: 6 weeks before a landlord gas safety certificate runs out, 8 weeks before an EICR, 3 weeks before a boiler service, 2 weeks for most other jobs. We tell you who we reminded. You can send one early or skip it, or turn off Send automatically on the Win-back page to choose each one yourself.
  4. 4When a customer we reminded books you and you mark it Won, we tell you the job came from the reminder.
  5. 5Each text goes from your LocalWins number in your business name and ends with Reply STOP to opt out. Replies come to you like any caller. Your list is only ever used by you.
  6. 6Your paperwork, on Settings: add your insurance and registration renewal dates and they go on your To do list a month before, with a text a week before if you want one.

A short video on your quote, and the homeowner's photos

Film the job and say what you'll do: the video plays on the customer's quote page above the price. Homeowners can add photos or a short video of the problem to a job they posted.

  1. 1Open the quote in your dashboard and press Record or choose a video. 30 seconds is plenty, up to 50 MB.
  2. 2It plays on the customer's quote page above the price. The PDF tells them to watch it on the page.
  3. 3A homeowner can add up to 6 photos or videos on their job page after posting. It is never a step in posting a job.
  4. 4Only the trades who take that job see them, on the Jobs page in their dashboard.

Connect your other apps

Send your leads, accepted quotes, bookings, homeowner jobs you take and payments into the software you already use, such as Jobber, ServiceM8 or Tradify.

  1. 1Everything is on one page: Connections, in the menu. It shows what is set up and what is not, with one button for each.
  2. 2Xero, QuickBooks and Sage connect there too, wherever you see a Connect button: accepted quotes go in as invoices, payments go against them, and receipts you send us go in as bills.
  3. 3For anything else, open Connections and scroll to Zapier or Make. In Zapier make a Zap with Webhooks by Zapier, Catch Hook (in Make, a Custom webhook), paste its link and press Send a test.
  4. 4Then add the action in your app, for example Jobber Create Client and Create Request, or ServiceM8 Create Job, and pick the fields.
  5. 5Only what you already see in LocalWins is sent, and you choose which things go. Remove a link at any time.

Chat on your website

A chat bubble on your own website, answered by the same AI as your text back, in your business name.

  1. 1Open Settings, then Connect your apps, and copy the one line under Chat on your website into your site (or send it to whoever looks after it).
  2. 2Visitors give their name and mobile and say what they need. The AI answers in the chat with the same rules as your text back: no prices you haven't given it, no promises of a call at a set time, and it never turns work away.
  3. 3You get the lead the same way as a missed call, with their number so you can ring them.

Your own adverts (Pro)

Adverts in your own business name on Google, Facebook and Instagram, written, tested and run for you on the budget you choose, with every enquiry coming only to you.

  1. 1Pick Pro when you go live and choose your monthly advert budget (we suggest from £300). It is a second line on the same monthly bill, paid to Google and Meta for your adverts, every penny, including the 20% VAT they add, which comes out of the budget: anything not spent in a month carries into the next, and the adverts never spend more than you've paid for. Change it, or stop it, any time from Adverts in your dashboard (or Get more work, then Your own adverts): a rise is charged that day for the rest of the month and spent straight away; a cut or stopping it starts from your next bill and nothing already paid is refunded; after a cut, that month your adverts spend no more than the new figure.
  2. 2Approve what the adverts may say: the work you want more of, the towns you cover, and anything you can prove in your own words. We never add a price, a rating or a claim you didn't give. Your adverts show within the distance you travel from your postcode or, where that would take in places you don't want, in and around the towns you named: tell us and we set it.
  3. 3Give LocalWins access to your Facebook Page so the adverts come from it (we send you the two taps), and add hello@localwins.co.uk as a manager on your Google Business Profile. You keep ownership of both. If you would rather run them from your own ad accounts and card, that works too.
  4. 4We write two or three adverts, with photos of your own work where we have them (from what you send us, your Google listing or your website), test them against each other, keep the ones that bring real enquiries and stop the rest. Every change shows under What we changed.
  5. 5We check every advert each morning: is it being shown, has Facebook or Google stopped it, is the money bringing real enquiries. On Google the check also says how often your advert was shown out of the searches it could have been shown for, and whether the rest were missed because the day's budget ran out or because other adverts were placed above yours. The page shows that day's check and a preview of each advert as people see it.
  6. 6Before your Google advert starts we ask Google what a click at the top of the page costs for your kind of work in your part of the country. If the Google share of your budget could not buy two of those clicks a day, all of it goes on Facebook and Instagram, the page says so, and Google starts by itself when the budget can buy them.
  7. 7Enquiries come only to you: a Facebook or Instagram form, a tap on your Google advert's call button (it rings your business phone) or the form on your own enquiry page. Within minutes they get a text in your name from your LocalWins number and you get a text with their name, postcode, job and number. Each one is on Customers, marked Facebook advert or Google advert.
  8. 8Want something changed? Write it in the box on the same page (wording, another service, a new area, a photo, an advert to stop). It comes to the LocalWins team, we make the change, and the page shows it as done.
  9. 9The page shows what you spent, how often your adverts were shown and clicked, the real enquiries they brought, and the quotes and jobs you won from them. Each month you get a report of what Google and Meta charged.
  10. 10This is different from the homeowner jobs LocalWins finds: those come from our own adverts and are shared with up to three local trades. An enquiry from your own adverts is yours alone and needs nothing accepting (the message says "New enquiry from your Facebook advert" or Google advert). It is never offered to other trades or put into the LocalWins Jobs network. If that customer later posts a job with LocalWins themselves, in a trade you cover, you are offered it first and alone. A LocalWins job starts "LocalWins job" and a number, Pro sees it first for two hours, and you take it by replying JOB and the number then YES, for example JOB 123 YES. Your Monday email lists every enquiry your adverts brought that week, how they are running and what we changed; a missed call to your advert number says "From your advert" in the alert. New adverts take a few weeks to learn who to show to, and we improve them every day. Pause your adverts at any time from the same page.

Posting a job (homeowners)

Post any home job free and local trades who do that work are offered it.

  1. 1Go to localwins.co.uk/jobs, say what needs doing and your postcode, and confirm with the code we text you.
  2. 2Up to three local trades who do that work are offered it. The ones who take it ring you.
  3. 3Your LocalWins account shows who has your job, lets you close it and post the next one. There's no password: sign in with a code texted to you.
  4. 4Free tools: a job cost estimate, a planning permission checker, a quote checker (one quote, or up to four compared side by side), a home maintenance calendar and a hiring checklist, at localwins.co.uk/jobs/tools.