Tips and Tricks

Voice Features on Your Website

If you've got an A.X.E.L website, your visitors can use voice input to describe their job. Instead of typing out "I need someone to tile my bathroom, it's about 8 square metres, white metro tiles" — they just tap the mic and talk.

Why does this matter? Because most of your customers are on their phones. Typing on a tiny keyboard is a pain. Voice removes that friction, which means more people actually finish the enquiry form instead of giving up halfway through.

The voice input works on the contact form and the quick enquiry widget. It transcribes what they say and fills in the description field. Dead handy for longer job descriptions.

Screenshot Scanning Workflow

This one's a proper time-saver. Got a screenshot of a text message, a Facebook Marketplace enquiry, or a Nextdoor post? Don't type it all out — let A.X.E.L scan it.

1. Tap New Lead
2. Choose Scan Screenshot
3. Pick the screenshot from your gallery
4. A.X.E.L reads the text and pulls out the customer name, job details, and contact info
5. Review it, tweak if needed, and save

It uses AI to understand what's in the screenshot. So if someone's messaged you on Facebook saying "Hi, I'm Dave, need a new boiler fitted in Salford, can you give me a price?", A.X.E.L will pull out:

• Name: Dave
• Job: Boiler fitting
• Location: Salford

Beats copying and pasting from three different apps. Especially when you've got paint on your hands.

Quick-Add Shortcuts

The fastest way to add a new lead is the quick-add button — the big + at the bottom of your screen. But here's what most people don't know:

• Long-press the + button to get quick-add options: New Lead, New Job, or New Quote
• Paste a phone number into the name field and A.X.E.L will auto-check for existing customers
• Skip optional fields — you only need a name and one contact method to create a lead. Fill in the rest later

The goal is to capture the lead in under 10 seconds. Get the name and number in, worry about details later. A lead in the system beats a lead in your head every time.

Keeping Your Pipeline Clean

Your pipeline is only useful if it reflects reality. Here are the habits that separate organised tradesmen from chaotic ones:

Move things along:

• When you've quoted a job, move it to "Quoted"
• When they say yes, move it to "Accepted"
• When it's done, move it to "Completed"
• When it's a dead end, archive it — don't leave it cluttering your board

Review weekly:

• Spend five minutes every Monday morning going through your pipeline
• Chase up any leads that have been sitting in "New" for more than a few days
• Archive anything that's gone cold — you can always revive it later

Use stages consistently:

• Don't skip stages — the pipeline works best when jobs flow through in order
• If your team uses A.X.E.L, agree on what each stage means so everyone's on the same page

🎯 A clean pipeline = a clear head. You can see at a glance what needs quoting, what's been accepted, and what's coming up. No more lying awake at 2am wondering if you forgot to follow up on something.

One More Thing

A.X.E.L gets better the more you use it. Your customer database grows. Your repeat customer detection gets smarter. Your job history becomes a goldmine for quoting similar work. Put the data in and it pays you back ten times over.