AI Roadmap
Hartwell Plumbing & Heating
Prepared by Dan Fitsall, Vantage AI Solutions · following the Claude Kickstart on Thursday 12 March
1. In one paragraph
Hartwell is a six-person plumbing and heating business where most of the week's admin is quoting, replying to enquiries, and re-typing information between email, WhatsApp and the diary. Claude is now set up for replies, quotes and marketing, and all six of you used it for real work on the day. The biggest win beyond that is the enquiry-to-diary flow: it takes roughly four hours a week and is a good candidate for automation, but only after the reply habit is solid. This roadmap sets out what to do yourselves first, and what's worth building.
2. What's now in place
- Claude for all six people; Priya is admin
- Projects: Customer replies · Quotes & proposals · Marketing · Internal ops, each with custom instructions and your price list, terms, FAQs and three past quotes loaded
- Prompt library: 18 prompts, in the shared Google Doc, owned by Priya
- Data rule agreed on the day: customer names and job details are fine; never paste card details or the full customer spreadsheet
3. Do these yourselves (next 30 days)
The habits that decide whether Monday looks different.
| What | Who | How | Time back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every customer reply starts in the Customer Replies project | Tom, Priya, Jake | Prompt 1 | ~3 hrs/wk |
| Every quote starts from site-visit notes | Tom | Prompt 2 | ~5 hrs/wk |
| Overdue invoices chased every Friday | Priya | Prompt 25 | ~1.5 hrs/wk |
| Monday huddle notes → actions | Priya | Prompt 10 | ~1 hr/wk |
Two-week check-ins: I'll message on the 19th and the 26th. Reply with the one thing that's stuck and I'll sort it.
4. Automation opportunities, ranked
From the audit. Your ranking, my estimates. “Approach” is my honest view of the right tool for each.
Quotes from site-visit notes
Claude- Now
- Tom writes them up at home in the evening from paper notes. 6–8 a week.
- Hours/wk
- 6 (your estimate)
- What it would take
- Already covered by Prompt 2 in the Quotes project. This is a habit, not a build. If Tom dictates notes into his phone on the drive back, the quote is drafted before he's home.
- Est. saving
- ~5 hrs/wk
Re-typing jobs from email into the diary
Automation- Now
- Enquiries arrive by email, WhatsApp and the website form. Priya copies each into the diary and the job sheet by hand.
- Hours/wk
- 4 (your estimate)
- What it would take
- A flow that reads new enquiries, drafts the job record, and creates a provisional diary entry for Priya to confirm. Launchpad-sized: about two weeks, £2,500. Only worth it once the reply habit (row 1 above) is solid, because the two connect.
- Est. saving
- ~3.5 hrs/wk
Chasing overdue invoices
Claude- Now
- Nobody's job. Done in a panic at month end.
- Hours/wk
- 2 (your estimate)
- What it would take
- Prompt 25 with the escalation ladder we set up. Fifteen minutes on a Friday.
- Est. saving
- ~1.5 hrs/wk
Writing up finished jobs for Facebook
Claude- Now
- Rarely happens, which is why the page has three posts from 2025.
- Hours/wk
- 0 (your estimate)
- What it would take
- Prompt 19 from a photo and two lines. Not a time saving, a marketing gain. One a week is plenty.
- Est. saving
- —
Supplier price negotiations
Leave- Now
- Tom, by phone, twice a year.
- Hours/wk
- 1 (your estimate)
- What it would take
- Relationship-driven and infrequent. Not worth touching.
- Est. saving
- —
Approach key. Claude: a person using Claude with the prompts you now have. Automation: runs on its own, nobody types. Leave: needs a human, or isn't worth the effort.
5. Recommendation
Spend the next 30 days on section 3. That's where most of the time comes back, and it costs nothing. If by the 26th Tom's quotes are coming from dictated notes and Priya's replies start in the project, the one thing genuinely worth building is the enquiry-to-diary flow (row 2): it's four hours a week of copy-paste that a small automation would remove entirely. That's a Launchpad-sized build. If the habits haven't stuck by then, building it would be a waste. Fix the habits first, and I'll help.
6. What I'd ignore
- A chatbot on the website. Your enquiries come by phone and WhatsApp; it would answer questions nobody is asking.
- Automating the job sheets. They work, everyone understands them, and the paper copy in the van is genuinely useful.