Electrician marketing: how texting turns calls into booked jobs

Electrician marketing that books jobs is mostly about speed and follow-up: answer every missed call with a text within a minute, then follow up every quote, visit and finished job with a short, specific message. Ads and SEO get the phone ringing, and texting decides how many of those calls become a booked panel upgrade instead of a call to the next contractor on the list.

This playbook covers the five texts that do most of that work for an electrical contractor: missed-call text-back, quote follow-up, on-my-way and job-complete, maintenance and inspection reminders, and review and referral asks. For each one we give a template, the timing, and what it costs on Ready, plus the 10DLC registration you need so carriers deliver the texts.

Electrician marketing starts with the calls you already get

Most marketing advice for electrical contractors is about getting more leads: Google Business Profile, local service ads, yard signs, truck wraps. All of that matters. The leak usually sits after the lead, though. A homeowner with a tripping breaker calls three electricians. If you're in an attic, on a ladder or driving, the call goes to voicemail. Many callers don't leave one. They dial the next number.

A text fixes that gap better than a voicemail greeting does. It reaches the caller while they're still deciding, they can answer without picking up the phone, and it gives your office a written thread with the address, photos and the problem. The rest of this post covers keeping that thread going from first call to five-star review.

One ground rule before the templates: text people who contacted you or agreed to hear from you. Cold outreach belongs on the phone and in the mailbox. Every text below goes to someone who called, booked, got a quote or hired you.

Missed-call text-back: the text that saves the job

This is the highest-value text in the playbook, because it catches someone who is ready to hire today.

Timing: within a minute of the missed call. Set it up as an automation in Ready, or as a workflow if you run GoHighLevel with Ready as the texting provider.

Template:

Hi, it's [Name] with [Company]. Sorry we missed your call, we're on a job. What's going on and what's the address? We'll get right back to you. Reply STOP to opt out.

Keep it under 160 characters once your names are filled in, so it bills as one segment. Skip the emoji. One emoji switches the whole text to unicode, which cuts a segment to 70 characters (more on that below).

The callback. The text holds the lead, and the call books the job. If you use the Ready Dialer, inbound calls ring the open dial pad in the dashboard (or in GoHighLevel), and missed calls show up as a Missed call card in the contact's Inbox thread so whoever is in the office can work through them. You click to call from the pad, and calls can be recorded and transcribed with consent. The Ready Dialer is billed at $0.025/min, with each started minute billed as a full minute. Calls are dialed by hand: there is no auto-dialing.

Quote follow-up: a short drip campaign with a Wait for reply step

A service-panel replacement, EV charger install or whole-home rewire is a considered purchase. The homeowner gets your quote, gets two more, and decides later. The contractor who follows up politely often wins on attention alone.

Run a three-message drip campaign after each quote goes out, with a Wait for reply step before each text, so a homeowner who answers gets no more follow-ups:

1. Day 2: "Hi [First name], it's [Name] at [Company]. Any questions on the panel upgrade quote? Happy to walk through it by phone."
2. Day 5: "Quick note: we have openings next week for the [job] if you want to lock in a date. Just reply with a day that works."
3. Day 10: "Last check-in on your [job] quote. If you went another way, no problem. If not, reply here and we'll get you scheduled."

Three texts is enough. A fourth starts to read as pressure, and pressure brings opt-outs. Whether to automate follow-ups or write them by hand is a judgment call. Our guide to which texts to automate and which to write by hand goes through the tradeoffs.

On-my-way and job-complete texts

These are operational texts, but they're also marketing: they're what a customer remembers when a neighbor asks "who did your wiring?"

On my way (sent by the tech or dispatcher when the truck leaves):

Hi [First name], [Tech] from [Company] is on the way, about 25 minutes out. Reply here if anything's changed.

Job complete (same day, after the work is signed off):

Thanks for having us out today, [First name]. Your invoice is on its way by email. Any flickers or tripped breakers this week, text us here.

The second text keeps the thread open. If a breaker trips three days later, the customer texts you instead of searching for a new electrician. That reply also counts as a billed segment on Ready (replies are billed like a sent text), which is a cost worth paying.

If you also send booking confirmations and day-before reminders, our appointment reminder SMS guide has templates and timing.

Maintenance and inspection reminders

This is where texting grows revenue instead of just protecting it. Electrical work has natural repeat dates:

• Generator service: annual, before storm season in your area
• Smoke and CO detector replacement: detectors have a limited service life, so a reminder near the end of it is useful
• Surge protector and panel inspections: for older homes or after a major storm
• Rental and pre-sale inspections: landlords and agents who need them on a schedule

Template:

Hi [First name], it's [Company]. Your generator was last serviced in [month]. Want us to check it before storm season? Reply YES and we'll call to schedule. Reply STOP to opt out.

These texts go to past customers, and anything promotional needs their consent. Add a clear checkbox to your booking form or invoice ("Text me service reminders and offers from [Company]"), and keep the record of who agreed, when and on what form. Ready records your attestation each time you send a campaign (and each API send that attests consent) (who sent it, to how many, when), but it doesn't store each customer's opt-in. That record is yours to keep. (A contact who signs up on a Ready-hosted opt-in page is the exception: Ready stores that sign-up, with the time, IP address and exact wording, and support@tryready.com can send you a copy.)

The mix of reminders and offers also affects your 10DLC campaign type. Register a reminders-only use case and start sending promos, and you can get filtered. Our guide to matching the use case to what you actually send explains how to pick.

Review and referral asks

Google reviews are one of the stronger local ranking signals for electricians, and a text is the easiest place to ask for one. Send it 1 to 2 days after the job, once the customer has seen everything working:

Hi [First name], glad we could get your [job] sorted. If you have a minute, a Google review helps us a lot: [your review link]. Thank you!

Ask every customer, not just the ones you expect to be happy. Use a branded link on your own domain or the direct Google review link. Ready's terms don't allow link shorteners: a text with one goes to a content review, and a message that review blocks is billed at 5 times the normal credit cost.

A referral ask works best as a separate text a few weeks later, for example "know anyone who needs an electrician? Mention us and..." with whatever offer you actually honor. It's promotional, so the consent rule above applies.

The setup: local number, 10DLC and compliance

To text from a regular 10-digit business number in the US, you need A2P 10DLC registration (a brand and a campaign). Unregistered traffic gets filtered by carriers. Here's how it works on Ready:

• Registration is in the app. No setup fee: you pay $25 when you submit, which is the first month. After that it's $25/mo for registration and $2/mo per number. Most approvals take 2 to 7 days. Our post on 10DLC cost breaks down every fee.
• Before approval, an account can send up to 500 texts a month at its normal per-text rate. If you bought your number before registering, it sends on Ready's shared registration while yours is in review.
• A local number. Most single-shop electricians need one number in their main area code. If you serve several metros and have a number in each, local presence sends from the number closest to the contact's area code. It has a listed price of $0.0015 for each segment of a delivered text. In GoHighLevel, the #from:local# tag selects that number. Every number stays on your registered campaign.
• Compliance built in: STOP replies are honored automatically across all campaigns, and automated texts (campaigns, drip campaigns, automations) wait for permitted local hours; a one-to-one text sent more than 6 hours before the window opens is refused and has to be sent again. Optional litigator and DNC scrubbing costs $0.003 extra per segment when switched on (it's off by default), or $0.005 per contact as a standalone scrub of a list. That's inexpensive protection against TCPA exposure of $500 to $1,500 per text. It reduces risk without removing it. Compliance remains the sender's responsibility.

Brand vetting ($79 Standard / $179 Enhanced, one-time) raises throughput limits, but an electrical contractor's volume rarely needs it.

What it costs: a worked month

Assumptions for an example shop: 50 missed calls texted back, 30 quotes with a 3-text follow-up, 80 jobs each getting an on-my-way, job-complete and review text, 100 maintenance reminders, and 150 reply segments. Every text is under 160 characters with no emoji, so each one is 1 segment.

Add 630 × $0.0045 for the carrier fee (itemized separately on your bill itemized separately), plus the fixed $27/mo with one number, which covers the brand, the campaign and the number. These totals exclude the compliance surcharge if you turn scrubbing on. If the office also returns all 50 missed calls through the Ready Dialer at an assumed 3 minutes each, that's 150 minutes × $0.025 = $3.75.

The emoji trap: add a ⚡ to a 140-character on-my-way text and it becomes 3 unicode segments instead of 1. Across 80 jobs, that's 240 segments instead of 80 for the same message.

Billing is prepaid credits through Stripe, and to send any text you need a card and a number ($2 a month, the first month charged when you get it). Rates are on the pricing page.

Where to start

Don't build all five at once. Set up missed-call text-back this week, since it protects leads you already paid for. Add the quote follow-up drip campaign next, then the job texts, and add reminders once your booking form collects consent. Your first 20 texts on Ready are free one-to-one sends, so use them to test your templates before you register. The free texts end once registration is paid. When you're ready, sign up and check the quickstart docs.

FAQ

Is texting customers who called me legal without written consent? Replying to someone who just called you about their job is a transactional response to their inquiry. Promotional texts, like offers and referral asks, need prior consent. Laws vary and compliance is your responsibility, so keep consent records and check with counsel if you're unsure.

Do I need 10DLC registration for a small electrical shop? For ongoing business texting from a local number, yes. Ready allows up to 500 texts a month before you register, but carriers filter unregistered traffic. Registration costs $25 at submit, and most approvals take 2 to 7 days.

Can I keep my existing business number? Yes. On the Numbers page, click Port numbers to move your existing US or Canada number to Ready. Once it moves, it sits on your registered campaign like any other number.

Does Ready work with GoHighLevel? Yes. Ready installs natively into GoHighLevel through OAuth, with two-way message sync, so your missed-call workflows and inbox stay in GHL. You can also run everything in the Ready app directly.

Can AI answer customer texts for me? Not on a new account. Ready no longer lets accounts create AI reply agents, though one set up earlier may still answer texts until you pause its automation in Automations. Ready's AI helps you write messages and checks them for spam-filter risk. Someone in your office answers each text.