Which Automation First? The Five-Minute Scorecard

So on Thursday I posted the five automations I'd look at first in any service business. The obvious next question is "fine, but which one do I do first?" And to be honest, it depends on your numbers, not mine.

This guide gives you two ways to work it out in about five minutes. Paste a prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and let it interview you, or score them yourself on the back of a receipt.

The five, roughly in the order they pay you back

1. Reply to every new enquiry in under a minute. Score it high if enquiries come in steadily and replying sometimes takes you hours. People often contact a few businesses at once, so the first reply has a head start.
2. Text back every missed call. Score it high if your phone rings while you're on a job or with a client. A lot of people won't leave a voicemail. They'll just ring the next business on Google.
3. Chase every quote that went quiet. Score it high if you send plenty of quotes and only hear back from some of them. A polite nudge two days later costs nothing.
4. Ask every customer for a review when the job's done. Score it high if your nearest competitor has more Google reviews than you.
5. Turn every sales call into notes and next steps. Score it high if you take a few sales calls a week and write them up yourself, or, let's be honest, don't write them up at all.

Let AI do the scoring

Copy this into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and answer its questions. It asks one at a time, does the maths with your numbers and tells you which one to set up first. If you don't know a number, guess. It marks the guesses so you know which bits to check.

You are helping me decide which automation to set up first in my service business. I'm not technical, so use plain words and keep each message short.

Ask me these questions one at a time, and wait for my answer before asking the next one. If I don't know a number, help me make a sensible guess and note that it's a guess.

1. What does the business do, and roughly what is a typical job or client worth?
2. How many new enquiries come in each month, from forms, emails, DMs and calls?
3. How long does it usually take us to reply to a new enquiry?
4. How many calls a week go unanswered?
5. How many quotes do we send a month, and how many turn into work?
6. How many Google reviews do we have, and how many does our nearest competitor have?
7. How many sales calls do we take a week, and who writes them up afterwards?
8. Which tools do we already pay for? Think email, calendar, CRM, phone system and spreadsheets.

When you have my answers, score these five automations for my business:
A. Reply to every new enquiry in under a minute
B. Text back every missed call
C. Chase every quote that went quiet
D. Ask every customer for a review when the job is done
E. Turn every sales call into notes and next steps

Score each one from 1 to 5 on:
- Money: how much work it could win or save each month, using my numbers
- Time: how many hours a month it would give back to me or my team
- Ease: how easily it would run on the tools I already pay for

Show the scores in a table with a total for each. Under the table, show the maths behind each Money score with my inputs, and mark every guess.

Then tell me:
1. Which one to set up first, and why, in two sentences.
2. The first step I can take this week with the tools I already have.
3. Which one to leave for now, and why.

Be straight with me. If my numbers say none of these is worth automating yet, tell me that.

Or score it on paper

No AI needed for this one. Give each automation a score from 1 to 5 on three things:

• Money: how much work it could win or save you each month.
• Time: how many hours a month it would give back to you or your team.
• Ease: how easily it would run on tools you already pay for.

              Money  Time  Ease  Total
Enquiries      __     __    __    __
Missed calls   __     __    __    __
Quotes         __     __    __    __
Reviews        __     __    __    __
Call notes     __     __    __    __

Highest total goes first.
If two tie, pick the higher Ease score.
It's the one that actually gets done.

Why the enquiry reply sits first

I put the enquiry reply at the top of the carousel because it's work you've already paid to get. The ad, the referral or the Google listing already did its job, and a slow reply is basically handing that money to whoever answers first. Here's the maths with made-up but pretty normal numbers.

What to do with your winner

Every Thursday I'm taking one of these apart properly, with the maths and the exact setup, and each one gets its own free guide here:

• Enquiry replies: 22 October
• Missed calls: 29 October
• Quote chasing: 5 November
• Review requests: 12 November
• Call notes: 19 November

And if your scorecard says none of them is worth it yet, that's a proper answer too. Don't automate something just because everyone else is.