When a pipe bursts or the power trips, people call the first tradesperson who is easy to reach and looks like they will show up. A paper card in a kitchen drawer loses to whoever the homeowner can call right now. Speed and trust win the job.
A digital card gives you both. One tap dials you, and the same screen shows the reviews and photos that make a stranger comfortable letting you into their home.
Make calling you effortless
For a trade, the single most important element is a tap-to-call button that is impossible to miss. An emergency customer will not type your number — they will call the next name on the list.
- A big tap-to-call button, plus a text option for non-urgent jobs.
- Your service area, so out-of-range callers do not waste your time.
- Hours and whether you take emergency or weekend calls.
Show the work and the reviews
Trust is the second half of the sale. Three or four photos of clean, finished work — a tidy boiler install, a neat panel, a leak fixed — say more than any slogan. Pair them with a couple of named reviews and you have answered the homeowner's real question: can I trust this person?
Keep it honest and specific. A review that mentions you cleaned up after yourself beats a five-star rating with no words.
Put the QR everywhere you already are
Your van, your invoices, your yard signs, and the sticker you leave on the boiler are all free advertising. Print your card's QR on each, so the customer who needs you next year can reach you without hunting for a number.
You can build a trades card free at onesol.io/card — tap-to-call, your service area, job photos, and reviews on one link you can slap on the van as a QR.
Make the Call a Single Tap, With Nothing in the Way
A customer looking for a plumber is usually mid-problem — a leak under the sink, no hot water on a cold morning — and in no mood to read. The card's first and largest button should be tap-to-call, so a homeowner goes from scanning the sticker on your van to your phone ringing in one thumb press, no typing, no hunting for the number.
A worked example: you leave a magnet on the boiler after a service with a QR and "Scan to call — save my number." Eighteen months later the boiler plays up on a Sunday; they scan, tap, and you ring instead of the first name in a search result. The card's job was to still be there, and to make the callback effortless at the moment they would otherwise ring a stranger.
Add Save Contact prominently too. The customer who taps it once has you filed under "plumber" in their phone for good, which is worth more than any single job — it is how the next three jobs and the neighbour's referral find you.
Prove You Are Worth Ringing in Two Seconds
A number alone does not win the callback; a homeowner choosing between three trades wants a reason to trust yours. Put three or four photos of real finished work on the card — a tidy boiler install, a re-tiled bathroom, a clean job left behind — because a picture of your own work does more than any adjective. Add a couple of genuine reviews with first names and a town, not anonymous five-star clip art.
State your service area and what you cover in plain words: "Gas-safe registered · Bristol and BS postcodes · boilers, leaks, bathrooms." A customer three towns away should not ring and find out you do not travel, and a customer next door should see instantly that they are in your patch. Clarity here saves you both a wasted call.
- Tap-to-call as the biggest button
- Three or four photos of your own finished jobs
- Two named reviews with a location
- Your trade credentials and service area
Offer a Quote Request for the Jobs That Can Wait
Not every job is an emergency, and for the ones that are not, a short quote form saves you a round of phone tag. Let a homeowner planning a new bathroom tap "Request a quote," describe the job in a box, and attach a photo — you reply when you are off the tools, with enough detail to price it properly instead of guessing over a bad line from a loft.
Keep the form to three or four fields — name, number, what the job is, and an optional photo — so it takes less effort than composing a text. The photo field earns its place for trades especially: a picture of the leaking joint or the wall to be re-tiled tells you more in a glance than a paragraph, and lets you turn up with the right parts.