Home service business glossary
The words home service owners, office staff and crews use, explained in one sentence each, with examples.
Sales and leads
- Booking rate
- Booking rate is the share of new leads that get an appointment or estimate visit booked: leads booked divided by leads received.
- Close rate
- Close rate is the share of quotes or estimate visits that turn into sold jobs: won quotes divided by quotes given.
- CRM (customer relationship management)
- A CRM is software that keeps every customer, lead and conversation in one place, so the office can see who needs what and nothing is forgotten.
- Lead response time
- Lead response time is how long a new inquiry waits for its first reply from your business; home service owners usually call it speed to lead.
- Lead source
- A lead source is where a new lead came from, such as a search ad, your website, a referral, a yard sign or a neighbor who saw the truck.
- No-show
- A no-show is a booked estimate visit or job where the customer is not there or the crew cannot get access, so the time slot is lost.
- Review request
- A review request is a message sent after a job asking the customer to leave an online review, sent to every customer rather than only the happy ones.
- Speed to lead
- Speed to lead is the time between a new lead reaching your business and the first real reply from a person, ideally under 5 business minutes.
Pricing and quotes
- Average ticket
- Average ticket is the average value of a sold job: total revenue from won jobs divided by the number of jobs won in the same period.
- Good, better, best pricing
- Good, better, best pricing is offering three priced options for the same visit on one quote, each including everything in the option below plus more.
- Minimum charge
- A minimum charge is the lowest price you will do any visit for, set to cover the drive, setup, the smallest real job, pack-up and your margin.
- Price per square foot
- Price per square foot is a rate charged for each square foot of surface cleaned, the most common way to price house washes, flatwork and roofs.
- Upsell
- An upsell is selling a customer more than they first asked for, such as adding gutter brightening to a house wash, because the property genuinely needs it.
Scheduling and routes
- Booking window
- A booking window is the span of time a customer is told the crew will arrive, such as 8 to 10 AM, instead of an exact time.
- Dispatch board
- A dispatch board is the office's view of every crew's day, by truck and time, where jobs are scheduled, moved and assigned.
- Drive time
- Drive time is the paid time a crew spends driving between the shop and jobs; it costs vehicle money and crew hours but earns nothing.
- Field service management (FSM)
- Field service management software runs the work of a company whose crews go to customers: leads, quotes, scheduling, crews, invoicing and reporting in one system.
- Rain day
- A rain day is a work day called off for weather, when outdoor jobs are moved to another day and every affected customer is told the new time.
- Route density
- Route density is how tightly a crew's jobs are packed together, measured as jobs or revenue per mile or per hour of driving.
- Service area
- A service area is the set of places your company works, often a list of ZIP codes or a radius from the shop, outside of which you decline or charge travel.
Recurring work
- Re-service interval
- A re-service interval is how long after a job the same service is usually due again, such as a house wash yearly or windows every six months.
- Recurring revenue
- Recurring revenue is income from customers who have agreed to repeat work, such as service plan visits, rather than from one-off jobs won one at a time.
- Service plan
- A service plan is a signed agreement for repeat visits on a schedule, at agreed prices, such as a house wash every spring and fall.
Money
- Accounts receivable
- Accounts receivable is the money customers owe you for work already invoiced but not yet paid.
- Deposit
- A deposit is part of a job's price paid when the quote is accepted, before the work is done, to secure the booking and cover materials on bigger jobs.
- Gross margin
- Gross margin is the share of a job's price left after the direct costs of doing it: (revenue minus job costs) divided by revenue.
- Job costing
- Job costing is working out what each job really cost (crew time, chemicals, materials) so you can see its margin, not just its revenue.
- Net terms
- Net terms are the number of days a customer has to pay an invoice after it is issued, such as net 30, common with commercial and HOA customers.
- Revenue per truck day
- Revenue per truck day is completed job revenue divided by truck days, where one truck day is one crew working one day.
Crew and field
- Before and after photos
- Before and after photos are pictures taken on every job before work starts and after it finishes, as a record of condition and proof of the result.
- Callback
- A callback is a return visit to fix or redo work from an earlier job, usually at no charge, such as a streak left on siding or a missed section of driveway.
- Crew app
- A crew app is the phone app field crews use to see their day, get directions, mark themselves on the way, follow checklists, take photos and log time.
- Customer sign-off
- A customer sign-off is the customer's confirmation, usually a signature on the crew's phone, that the job was finished to their satisfaction.
Trade terms
- Commercial vs residential
- Residential work is for homeowners; commercial work is for businesses, property managers and HOAs, with different prices, scheduling, paperwork and payment terms.
- Downstreaming
- Downstreaming is drawing cleaning solution into a pressure washer's water after the pump, through an injector, so it comes out of the wand at low pressure.
- Flatwork
- Flatwork is the horizontal hard surfaces a crew cleans, such as driveways, sidewalks, patios, pool decks and parking areas, usually with a surface cleaner.
- Gutter brightening
- Gutter brightening is cleaning the outside face of gutters to remove the dark streaks (often called tiger stripes) that a normal house wash leaves behind.
- HOA (homeowners association)
- An HOA is the association that runs a neighborhood's shared areas and rules, and a common commercial customer for cleaning entrances, sidewalks and pools.
- House wash
- A house wash is cleaning a home's exterior walls (siding, stucco, brick, trim and soffits), usually by soft washing, to remove algae, mildew, dirt and spider webs.
- Pressure washing
- Pressure washing is cleaning hard surfaces with water sprayed at high pressure, used mostly on concrete, pavers, brick and other surfaces that can take it.
- Roof soft wash
- A roof soft wash is cleaning a roof with a low-pressure cleaning solution that kills the algae causing dark streaks, rinsed gently and never blasted with high pressure.
- Soft wash mix ratio (sodium hypochlorite)
- The soft wash mix ratio (SH mix ratio) is how much sodium hypochlorite is diluted with water for a soft wash, worked out from the product's strength and the strength you want at the surface.
- Soft washing
- Soft washing is cleaning with a low-pressure spray of solution, usually diluted sodium hypochlorite and a surfactant, that kills algae, mold and mildew.
- Surfactant
- A surfactant is a soap added to a cleaning mix that lowers water's surface tension, so the solution spreads, clings to walls and dwells long enough to work.
See it on your own customers
Create your account. We set it up with you, with your customers and your price list, before your team starts.