Site Visit Preparation & Consultation Protection
From the moment a consultation or site visit is booked to the moment the designer arrives, the client is prepared, the information is gathered, and the team arrives knowing the property, the project and the people involved.
- Tier
- Foundational
- Build order
- 2nd of 7 for smart home and AV
- Shape of it
- 8 steps, 1 decision point
- At launch
- Runs supervised, with you approving what goes out
The problem this solves
The site visit is the most expensive hour in the sales process. A senior person drives to a property, often a considerable distance, and spends the first twenty minutes asking questions that could have been answered beforehand: what is already installed, what stage the build is at, who the builder and architect are, whether there is a floor plan, what the client actually cares about.
Then a share of visits do not happen at all, because nothing in the two weeks between booking and arrival gave the client a reason to prioritise it, or because the builder's schedule moved and nobody told anyone.
And on the way out, the designer has a head full of information that will be written up later, partially, from memory.
How it works, step by step
Every wait, threshold and branch below is a value we set with you during the build, against your stages and your language. None of it is a default we impose.
- What starts it
- It decides something
Step 1Trigger
The visit is booked. The client immediately receives a confirmation naming the date, the arrival window, who is coming, roughly how long it takes, and what would be useful to have ready.
Step 2Branch
A short preparation request goes out: floor plans if they exist, the builder and architect contacts, what is already installed, and what the client is hoping the system will do.
Step 3
Anything returned is attached to the project record before the visit rather than after it.
Step 4
The day before, a confirmation goes out. A visit that is not confirmed is worked as a probable gap rather than assumed.
Step 5
The designer receives a brief before leaving: the property, the project stage, the referring partner, existing equipment if known, the client's stated priorities, and the qualification from System 1.
Step 6
On site, capture is structured rather than remembered: rooms, existing infrastructure, network, rack location, constraints, client priorities, and photographs.
Step 7
The visit cannot be closed without a next step recorded: proposal date, further information needed, or an honest decision not to proceed.
Step 8
Anything left open becomes a task with an owner and a date.
How it gets built
Built inside what you already run
- D-Tools
- iPoint
- or whatever your office already runs on
Nothing to log into and nothing to license. If a system needs a record your platform does not hold, we add the field to your platform rather than starting a second one beside it.
This is the actual build order, in the phases its own steps fall into. It runs in supervised mode first, with you approving what goes out, until you are happy with the tone.
- 1
Agree
Agree the confirmation and preparation content with the owner and the design lead.
The thresholds, the wording and the names are yours. We write them down with you and get the consequential ones signed off.
- 2
Build
Wire booking events out of whatever calendar the team actually uses.
Built inside the software you already run, against your stages and your language.
- 3
Build
Build the preparation request and, importantly, make returning it easy. A client will not install an app to send you a floor plan.
- 4
Build
Build the unconfirmed queue and name who works it.
- 5
Build
Design the on-site capture with the designer who will use it. If it takes longer than their current notebook, it will not be used.
- 6
Build
Push the brief into whatever they already open on the way to a job.
- 7
Prove
Run supervised for three visits before it is live.
It runs with a person approving what goes out until you are happy with the tone. Nothing sends unreviewed on day one.
What changes after it goes live
How it runs today
The site visit is the most expensive hour in the sales process. A senior person drives to a property, often a considerable distance, and spends the first twenty minutes asking questions that could have been answered beforehand: what is already installed, what stage the build is at, who the builder and architect are, whether there is a floor plan, what the client actually cares about.
After this one is live
The first twenty minutes of every site visit stop being an interview. The designer arrives knowing the property and the people. Write-up happens on site rather than at 9pm. And the visits that were never going to happen get identified before somebody drives two hours.
How to measure whether it worked
Your arithmeticRun with your numbers, not ours
Two numbers the company already has: the number of site visits that did not convert to a proposal, valued at the loaded cost of a senior person's day including travel, and the number of visits cancelled or missed at short notice.
We agree the baseline before anything is built, and we do not take credit for things that were going to happen anyway. There is no figure on this page claiming what we have produced for somebody else, because there is no verified figure to publish.
What we will not do
This is from the same delivery document as everything above it. It is on the page because a supplier who has not thought about it will not tell you, and you would find out later.
This trade does not carry the healthcare regulation of the med spa and dental playbooks, but it carries a different and equally serious exposure.
Client privacy is the primary risk. These systems are installed in the homes of wealthy and often deliberately private people. Every system here touches data that must never leave the business:
- Never expose a client address, a floor plan, a rack elevation, a network diagram, credentials, camera locations or a security configuration in a demonstration, a case study, a proposal template or a marketing asset.
- Every demonstration uses synthetic data. No real project, no real address, no real client name, even with permission, because a permission granted once travels further than anyone intends.
- Credentials handed over at completion go through a secure mechanism, not an email body.
- Remote access and monitoring integrations are a security surface. Any automation touching them needs the same review an integrator would apply to a client's network.
United States messaging rules still apply. Automated SMS to clients and prospects sits inside the TCPA and inside carrier A2P 10DLC registration:
- Classify every system as service or marketing before it sends. An appointment confirmation and a seasonal upgrade offer are different things under different consent standards.
- Record consent per number with date, source, wording and scope.
- Quiet hours 8am to 9pm in the recipient's local time.
- Honour STOP and free-text opt-outs immediately, cancel queued messages, and propagate suppression across every sending system.
- Route replies to a monitored human queue. A reply saying the system is down is not a marketing response.
Trade partner relationships are commercially sensitive. Builders, architects and designers refer work on the strength of trust. Any automation that contacts a homeowner in a way that cuts across the partner's relationship with their own client will cost referrals. Every system that touches a trade-referred project needs the partner's role defined before it sends anything.
Nothing in this document is legal advice. State privacy and telemarketing law, carrier policy and contractual obligations to manufacturers and trade partners can each add requirements. Every template stating a commercial term requires review by the company's own counsel before it goes live.
Nothing here is legal advice. Rules in this area have moved more than once recently, and every template that states a commercial term or a guarantee goes to your own counsel before it goes live.
Seven systems forsmart home and AV.
We build one at a time and prove it moved before starting the next. The tiers are the dependency order, not a price list.
Tier 1Foundational
Nothing arrives late or unowned. These come first because everything above them assumes they are true.
- 1Multi-Channel Capture, Qualification & Instant ResponseFastest visible result, and it captures the trade introductions that currently live in text messages, which is the finding that earns trust.
- 2Site Visit Preparation & Consultation Protectionyou are hereProtects the most expensive hour in the sales process.
Tier 2Growth
The recoverable money. These work the pools the foundational systems have made visible for the first time.
Tier 3Flagship
One connected system end to end, plus what the owner reads on a Monday. Only once the pieces are proven individually.
- 5The Complete Project SystemThe flagship, once the pieces are proven individually.
- 6Service Agreements, Installed Base & Recurring RevenueCompounds everything above, and depends on the installed base data that System 5 starts producing properly.
- 7The Owner's Morning BriefOnly meaningful once there are systems to report on.
The tiers are the dependency order for smart home and AV, not a price list. Most firms do not start at the first one, because the order is a default and the call is where it gets changed.
A note on sequencing this trade
Do not build all seven at once.
Each stage is proven against its agreed measure before the next begins.
One sequencing note specific to this trade. System 3's existing backlog of open proposals should be worked by hand in week one, before any of it is automated. At project values of ten to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, one recovered proposal usually pays for the entire engagement, and working it manually is what tells you what the five branches should actually say.
Back to the smart home and AV overview for the stage map and where these fit.
Is this the oneyou need first?
Often it is not. On the call we look at what is actually costing you most right now, which is frequently a different system from the one that brought you to this page. If there is nothing worth building yet, we will say so.