ServiceM8 automation: the setup saving one trade business 20 hours a week
By Brodie Legget, founder of Johnni AI
Most trade businesses I talk to have the same nightly routine. Dinner, then an hour on the laptop copying job requests out of Gmail and into ServiceM8.
One of our clients was doing exactly that. Orders came in through the form on their website, landed in their inbox, and someone had to type every single one into ServiceM8 by hand after a full day on the tools.
So we built them an automation that does it for them. It saves them about 20 hours a week.
This one went up on our Instagram too, if that’s more your thing.
What it actually does
A job request comes in through the website and the automation takes it from there.
It reads the email and pulls out the name, the address and what needs doing. Then it checks ServiceM8 to see whether they’re already a customer.
New customer? It sets them up. Been to them before? It finds their existing record, so you don’t end up with the same person in there three times.
Either way, a job card lands in ServiceM8 with the materials already on it. Then it gets dropped straight into a free slot on the board, based on the scheduling rules the business already uses.
Nobody touches it. The job’s just there in the morning, ready to go.
What 20 hours a week looks like
Twenty hours is half a working week. Every week.
For this business, it was the time someone spent after hours copying orders across, double-checking addresses and hunting for a gap on the board. None of it was hard. It just never stopped.
Now it happens on its own as the requests come in. That time goes back into quoting new work, or into simply not opening the laptop after dinner.
Who it suits
This works best for businesses with repeat customers and regular orders. If the same kinds of jobs come through your website week in, week out, and someone on your team is retyping them, that’s exactly the gap it fills.
It’s less useful if every job is a one-off that needs a long chat before anyone can quote it. That kind of work still needs a person, at least for the first conversation.
Why we build it around you
Every business runs a bit differently. Different form fields, different job types, different rules about who gets which slot.
So we don’t sell a one-size-fits-all version. We look at how you already work in ServiceM8 and build the automation around that, instead of making you change your process to suit a tool.
If you want to see the other kinds of jobs we automate, there’s more on our business automation page.
What about jobs that come in by phone?
Plenty of work still comes in as a phone call, not a form.
That’s where our AI receptionist comes in. It can be set up to work with ServiceM8 as well, so phone enquiries turn into job cards in the same place. There’s a full rundown on our ServiceM8 page.
A couple of things to keep in mind
It’s only as tidy as what comes in. A website form with clear fields gives you clean job cards. A free-text “call me about a thing” email needs a bit more work to get right.
And because it’s built for your business, it’s not instant. We scope it with you first, build it, test it on real requests, then keep an eye on it after it goes live.
Want one for your business?
Tell us what you’re retyping into ServiceM8 at 9pm. Scoping is free, and there’s no obligation.
Start on our business automation page or get in touch, and we’ll work out whether an automation like this makes sense for you.