Skip to main content
Emergency local

How plumbers and heating engineers get clients: a 90-day plan

How your buyer buys: The buyer has a problem now and is searching now. Whoever answers first wins.

Most of your customers are not shopping. A boiler has stopped, a tap will not turn off, or a landlord needs a gas safety certificate by Friday. They search once, ring the first two numbers that look real, and book whoever answers. The job goes to the plumber who picks up, not the one with the best website.

The second group buys slowly. A new boiler or a bathroom is a big spend, so they collect three quotes and compare. Here the deciding factors are a same-day quote, a Gas Safe number they can check, and a follow-up that arrives before the competitor's. Reviews and job photos settle it.

That sets the order of play. Fix the phone first, because callouts are won in the first ten minutes. Then make the profile and the reviews carry the search traffic you already get. Then build the diary work that smooths the year: boiler service plans, landlord certificates, and letting agents who send every property to you.

Step zero

The free checklist, before the plan.

The checklist repairs what you already have: the phone, the profile, the booking path. This page is the plan for new work on top of it, and the two are different jobs.

The Plumber's DIY Growth Checklist

The free checklist for plumbers and heating engineers: every repair to the phone, the profile and the booking path, as step-by-step actions. Sent by email.

Useful content only, unsubscribe any time. See the privacy policy.

Where they look

Where your customers actually look.

  • Gas Safe Register(opens in a new tab)

    Every customer who knows to check will check here. Keep the listing matching your trading name, phone number and the towns you cover, and put the registration number beside your phone number on every page and quote.

  • Google Business Profile(opens in a new tab)

    The map pack is where an emergency search ends. Primary category Plumber or Heating contractor, every service listed, a photo from each install, and a review link texted after every paid invoice.

  • Checkatrade(opens in a new tab)

    Paid, and the reviews move with you. Worth it in a town where the homeowners you want already use it. Set an exit date and judge it on booked jobs, not on enquiries.

  • Which? Trusted Traders(opens in a new tab)

    An assessed scheme, so the badge carries weight with older homeowners and with the boiler and bathroom buyers who compare three quotes.

  • Manufacturer installer finders

    Worcester Bosch, Vaillant and Ideal each list accredited installers. Once accredited you appear when a homeowner searches the brand they want, and the enquiry arrives half sold.

  • Nextdoor(opens in a new tab)

    Neighbours ask for a plumber in the first cold week. A tidy business page and a few genuine replies put your name in the thread before the question is asked.

Your year

When the phone rings, and when to start.

Heating breakdowns spike with the first cold week; plumbing callouts run all year.

  1. Jan: peak
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun: quiet
  7. Jul: quiet, start the visibility work
  8. Aug: quiet
  9. Sep
  10. Oct: peak
  11. Nov: peak
  12. Dec: peak

Amber months are the peak, grey months are quiet, and "start" marks the month the visibility work has to begin in.

  • October to January peak: start by July, because local search takes about three months to move.

Plumbing callouts run all year. Heating does not. The first cold week, usually in October, brings a wave of breakdowns, and it runs to January. That wave rewards whoever is already visible, so the profile, the reviews and the boiler pages need to be moving by July. In September, tell past customers how many service dates remain before winter. June to August is the quiet stretch: use it for service plan sign-ups, letting agent conversations, and the bathroom work that fills slow weeks.

The 90-day plan

Four phases, in the order that pays back fastest.

Each step names its channel, its cost band from the technique register, the effort it takes, and how long until the first enquiry or booking.

Week 0

  1. Answer the phone, text back missed calls

    Text back every missed call with a booking link, and put an answering service or AI agent on out-of-hours

    • Cost: £
    • Low effort
    • First result within a week
    In the kit and the bundle

  2. Reply inside five minutes

    Route calls, web forms and messages to one notification on your phone

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • First result within a week

  3. Google Business Profile, complete

    Set the primary category to Plumber, list every service and the towns you cover, and add job photos weekly

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • About 30 minutes a week
    • First result in 4 to 12 weeks
    In the bundle

Month 1

  1. Ask every client for a review

    Text a review link the moment each invoice is paid, and reply to every review

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • About 30 minutes a week
    • First result in 4 to 12 weeks
    In the kit and the bundle

  2. Same-day quote, then follow up

    Quote installs and bathrooms the same day, then follow up at two, five and twelve days

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • First result in 1 to 3 weeks
    In the kit

  3. A page per service and per town

    A page for each money job (boiler installs, breakdowns, bathrooms) and for each town you cover

    • Cost: ££
    • Medium effort
    • First result in 8 to 16 weeks
    In the bundle

Months 2 to 3

  1. A plan with a name and a monthly price

    Launch an annual boiler service plan, collected monthly by direct debit

    • Cost: £
    • Medium effort
    • First result in 4 to 12 weeks
    In the kit

  2. Local Services Ads

    Run Local Services Ads for boiler repair and emergency plumbing, capped to the towns you cover

    • Cost: £££
    • Medium effort
    • About 1 hour a week
    • First result in 0 to 2 weeks

  3. Reciprocal trade partners

    Agree reciprocal referrals with two electricians and a bathroom fitter

    • Cost: Free
    • Low effort
    • First result in 4 to 12 weeks

  4. Cold email to limited companies

    Email limited-company letting agents and landlords a fixed price per property for landlord gas safety certificates and boiler services

    To limited companies only: identify yourself, give an opt-out address, keep a suppression list.

    • Cost: ££
    • Medium effort
    • About 1 hour a week
    • First result in 2 to 8 weeks
    Limited companies only

Month 3 onward

  1. Due-again nudges and win-backs

    Send a service reminder at eleven months to every past customer who did not opt out

    • Cost: £
    • Low effort
    • First result in 0 to 4 weeks
    In the kit

  2. Leaflets round a finished job

    Leaflet the streets round each finished install while the van is still outside

    • Cost: ££
    • Medium effort
    • First result in 2 to 8 weeks
The cost of waiting

What doing nothing costs plumbers and heating engineers.

The leaks below are the ones the plumbers and heating engineers page already names. Put a figure on each, see what the fix gets back a month, and how many weeks the kit or the bundle takes to pay for itself.

Industry estimates, not client results

Industry-typical ranges for a one or two van firm: repairs and services in the low hundreds blended with occasional boiler installs, most callers booking whoever answers, and an annual service or callback from roughly half of customers.

Every number below is prefilled from that estimate and editable. Put your own figures in and the leaks, gains and payback recalculate as you type.

Your numbers

Further purchases per won customer in a year

Baseline revenue on these figures: £8,750 a month, counting this month's new customers and a twelfth of their repeat business.

Where it leaks

  • Drains enquiries

    You miss calls on the tools and the job goes to whoever answered

    Leaking now
    £2,917 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £2,042 a month
    The fix
    AI phone answering (about £700 one-off)
    Pays back in
    1.5 weeks

  • Drains enquiries

    Nights and weekends mean emergency calls you cannot always take

    Leaking now
    £972 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £583 a month
    The fix
    Missed-call text-back (about £325 one-off)
    Pays back in
    2.4 weeks

  • Drains enquiries

    The website was built years ago and does not mention half your services

    Leaking now
    £2,188 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £875 a month
    The fix
    A website that wins local jobs (about £1,750 one-off)
    Pays back in
    8.7 weeks

  • Drains enquiries

    Reviews arrive when you remember to ask, which is rarely

    Leaking now
    £1,544 a month
    Gain from the fix
    £772 a month
    The fix
    Review engine (about £475 one-off)
    Pays back in
    2.7 weeks

On these figures

£7,621 a month leaking

Fixing every leak above gets back about £4,272 a month, with each leak counted on its own against the same baseline.

The Never-Missed-Job System (£1,995)
Pays back in 2.0 weeks
The Plumber Growth Kit (£49)
Pays back in under a week

Inside the 90-day window on these figures. Change any field above to test it against your own numbers for plumbers and heating engineers.

What matters most

The levers that carry the most weight here.

Four steps carry most of the weight here. Answering the phone, with a text back on every missed call, because a callout is lost in minutes. Google Business Profile and reviews, because that is where an emergency search ends. Same-day quotes with a follow-up, because installs and bathrooms are won on speed. And the service plan, because a boiler service paid monthly turns one-off callouts into a diary you can count on. Local Services Ads come after those four, not before.

See every lever for plumbers and heating engineers in the register

Reading for plumbers and heating engineers

All insights

If you would rather we did this for you

The same plan, built and run for plumbers and heating engineers: the phone, the profile, the pages and the follow-up, priced up front.

See what we build for plumbers and heating engineers

Not sure which step comes first for your business?

The free audit asks about your trade, your numbers and your season, then ranks the fixes for you.

Get the free auditBack to the guide