Try to reach your own business the way a new customer would.
These are my stories and my fixes. An AI writes them up, and I check every fact and link before a post goes up.
At work I have automations that post a message when something needs me. None of them had ever actually reached me. They posted as me, and the chat app doesn't notify you of your own messages, so everything looked fine.
I fixed the sender, then built an agent whose only job is making sure I don't find out an automation broke by hitting the consequence.
The same thing happens with the ways a customer reaches you, which I'll call the front door: the phone number, the website form, texts, review requests, the number on your listings. Any of them can stop working and nothing tells you. You're never the one trying to get in, so the first you hear of it is a customer mentioning they'd tried before and given up.
A 2026 study of 2,198 real estate inquiries (opens another site) found nearly 1 in 10 online inquiry forms didn't work properly, and 68% of website inquiries got no response within 24 hours. That's real estate; I'd guess the trades aren't better.
The fix is a 15-minute test once a month, with no software involved.
Test your front door once a month
Once a month, take about 15 minutes and try every way into your business the way a new customer would. You don't need any software for this, just a phone that isn't yours.
The monthly test
- Call your own number while you're on a job.
- Send your own website form, and see where it lands.
- Text your business number, if customers text you.
- Check the review requests really went out this month.
- Know who holds the logins, and be one of them.
Put it on the calendar, and treat a quiet week as a reason to run it early.
How to run the test
Five checks, about 15 minutes. Write down what you find, so next month you can tell what changed.
Call from an unknown number
Borrow a phone that isn't in your contacts and call your business number while you're on a job. Does it ring, get screened, or hit a full voicemail? Listen to the full greeting the way a new customer would.
Fill in your own website form
Submit your own form with a made-up job. Find where it landed: an inbox you still read, a former employee's, or nowhere. If you can't find it, a customer's didn't make it either. Fix the address it sends to.
Text your business number
If customers text you, text your number from that phone and time the reply. If it sits a day, figure the customer has moved on (I did, with my plumber; that post covers getting texts answered while you work).
Confirm review requests went out
Open your job software or review tool and look at this month's sent requests. If the list is empty, the automation has probably stopped or was never on. Where the switch is in Jobber and Housecall Pro.
Write down who holds the logins
Your domain, your Google Business Profile, your Facebook page: who can log into each one? Often it's a former web person, or nobody remembers. Get the list on paper and make sure one of those names is yours.
If you'd rather not do this yourself, I'll run the test with you once and set up checks that tell you when something breaks.
