Appointment setting for home improvement companies, paid per booked appointment

Appointment setting for home improvement companies is the work of contacting homeowners who enquired, having the conversation and booking them in for a survey, home visit, design appointment or callback with your sales team. It sits between marketing, which produces the enquiry, and sales, which runs the appointment.

It is different from the appointment setting you see advertised for software and consultancy firms, which is mostly cold outreach to other businesses. In home improvement the people being contacted are homeowners who asked you for a price. The job is to reach them while they are still interested, answer their questions and get a time in the diary.

There are four common ways to get home improvement appointments set: hire a setter in-house, outsource to a call centre or agency, use an offshore virtual assistant, or use AI SMS on your own leads. Each has a different cost and a different amount for you to manage.

1. Hire an in-house appointment setter

You employ someone to call and text enquiries. You control the script and they learn your products. In return you take on salary, recruitment, training, management and cover for holidays and sickness. Published UK data puts the average appointment setter salary at about £28,210 (Jooble; see also Indeed UK). Business development roles run higher, at £26,000 to £40,000 base and £42,000 to £55,000 on target earnings (Coburg Banks).

2. Outsource to a call centre or agency

An agency provides callers for a monthly fee, a fee per appointment or a mix of both (Belkins sets out the common pricing models). Vendor figures put outsourced appointment setting at around $3,000 to $8,000 a month (VA Masters) and pay per appointment services at roughly $75 to $500 per appointment (SalesBread). You manage less day to day, but the callers do not know your trade as well as your own team.

3. Use an offshore virtual assistant

An offshore assistant costs less per hour, with vendor figures of about $8.50 to $14.50 an hour (VA Masters). You still write the scripts, check the quality and cover UK hours.

4. Use AI SMS on your own leads

An AI texts every homeowner who enquired, holds the conversation and books appointments into your calendar. This is what Setterly does. It works on your existing quotes and enquiries rather than cold lists, and it can reply in the evening and at weekends when many homeowners answer. Speed matters here: research published in Harvard Business Review found firms that replied within an hour were about seven times more likely to qualify a lead (reported by SmartCompany).

The table below uses published figures from the sources listed at the bottom of this page. They are a guide, not quotes, and several are US figures or vendor figures.

Setterly sets appointments in three steps: you send us your leads, the AI texts each homeowner, and booked appointments land in your diary.

1. Step 1

   You send us your leads

   Old quotes, unsold leads and past enquiries as a CSV export. A CRM connection is optional.

2. Step 2

   The AI texts each homeowner

   A two-way SMS conversation about their enquiry. It answers questions, handles price and timing objections and offers two times.

3. Step 3

   Appointments land in your diary

   Surveys, home visits, design appointments or callbacks go into your calendar with notes for your team.

The AI asks the questions your team would ask before a visit and offers two times. Your sales team runs the appointment. For example, Cloudy2Clear had 673 appointments booked from 6,769 old enquiries (case study), and a single-branch UK window and door installer had 22 appointments in the first 30 days that led to £31,483 in closed revenue (case study). The full process is on how it works.

Yes. Many Setterly campaigns work on old quotes and enquiries that had gone quiet. That work is called lead reactivation, and it has its own page: lead reactivation for home improvement.

Lead quality is set by your own new lead generation, because the AI works the leads you already have. If you want the background on AI appointment setting or on keeping booked appointments in the diary, these guides cover it:

• AI appointment settingWhat it is and how it works
• How to reduce appointment no-showsPractical steps for your team
• Lead reactivation for home improvementOld quotes into booked appointments
• All industriesTrade by trade pages

You pay per booked appointment. There is no setup fee and no retainer. CRM integration is optional and carries a one-off fee, agreed with you before any work starts.

We go through how the per appointment price works for your average job value on a short call. Book a call.