BUILT AND RUNNING / HOME SERVICE

Off-the-shelf tools, stitched into one customer journey

IN SHORT

Dryer Vent Pros, my dryer vent cleaning business in Toronto, ran its whole customer journey on tools anyone can buy: a CRM with its own workflows, a booking tool, invoicing and texts, joined with Make.com and webhooks. It served more than 380 customers in about a year. Where it hit its limits is what became the Aeris app.

  • Jun 2025 to Aug 2026
  • My own business
  • Toronto

THE PROBLEM

Getting the lead was not the hard part. Following up every time was.

Every new customer started a string of small tasks: capture the enquiry, reply, collect the details of the job, book a time, update the customer record, confirm, remind, do the work, invoice, ask for a review, and keep the record for next year's visit.

Each one takes a few minutes. Across hundreds of customers those minutes become a part-time job, and the step that gets skipped on a busy day is usually the one that brings the next customer: the reply, the reminder or the review request.

One rule guided the design: automate the predictable steps, and keep people where judgment or a conversation adds something.

WHAT I BUILT

Each step, and the tool that carried it

No custom software. Each part of the journey ran on a tool built for it, and the joins between them were the part I built.

  • THE STEPTHE TOOL
  • The website and its enquiry formWordPress
  • Customer records, follow-ups and the pipelineZoho Bigin and its workflows
  • Booking, on the right calendarCalendly, synced to two Google Calendars
  • Texts to customersTwilio
  • InvoicesZoho Invoice
  • The joins between all of themMake.com scenarios and webhooks

HOW IT FLOWED

From enquiry to review, without anyone carrying it

Each step produced what the next one needed. The amber step is the one people did.

  1. Lead arrivesFrom the website form or a call.
  2. Record createdA customer record in the CRM, with the details of the job.
  3. Reply sentAn answer goes out, with a way to book.
  4. BookedThe customer picks a time, and it lands on the right calendar.
  5. Confirmed and remindedA confirmation, then a reminder before the visit.
  6. The workThe cleaning itself, and the conversation at the door.
  7. InvoicedThe invoice is created and sent from the job's record.
  8. Review requestedA request after the visit, and the record kept for next year.

Ran on its ownPeople did it

THE SCALE IT RAN AT

What it handled

  • 380+customers over the life of the business
  • 80+five-star Google reviews in its first year
  • 6tools joined into one journey
  • 8steps run the same way for every customer

These are the business's own figures. The tools did not win those customers or those reviews; the work did. What the system did was run the same steps for every customer as the numbers grew, so the admin did not grow at the same pace.

WHERE IT HIT ITS LIMITS

Why it became something else

Connected tools were the right first step: quick to set up, cheap to change, and good enough to run a growing business. As it grew, the limits showed.

  • The tools' way of organising things fought the work. A CRM thinks in contacts and deals; a service business thinks in addresses, jobs and visits.
  • We paid for features we never used, because the parts we needed came bundled with the parts we did not.
  • The joins were the fragile part. Every link between two tools was one more thing to watch, and a change in one tool could quietly break the step after it.

So the next business started from the work rather than the tools, and got one app built around it. If you are weighing the same choice, this post adds up what a stack of tools really costs.

WHAT I DID

What I did

Ran the business

From the first enquiry to the last invoice, so every step was one I knew first-hand.

Mapped the journey

Every step from the first enquiry to next year's visit, and what each one needed from the last.

Chose the tools

One tool per job, picked for what the business needed at that size, not for features.

Built the joins

The CRM's workflows, the Make.com scenarios and the webhooks that moved details between tools.

Kept people where they count

The work itself and the conversation stayed human; the admin around them did not.

Knew when to move on

Saw where the tools fought the work, and designed what replaced them.

BUILT WITH

Built with

  • WordPress
  • Zoho Bigin
  • Bigin workflows
  • Calendly
  • Google Calendar
  • Zoho Invoice
  • Make.com
  • Webhooks
  • Twilio