Overview
The company had accumulated over 1,000 past leads and customers who had never been systematically re-engaged — representing significant paid acquisition cost with no downstream return.
Primary Constraints
- — Contact list spread across CRM, spreadsheets, and old lead form exports with no unified source
- — Many contacts had not been touched in 12–24 months
- — Owner concerned about alienating past customers with unsolicited outreach
How We Solved It
List Consolidation
Pulled contacts from all sources — CRM, Google Sheets, past lead form exports — deduplicating into a single clean list with name, phone number, and last interaction date.
Recency Segmentation
Split contacts into three groups: past customers (completed jobs), warm leads (inquired but never booked), and cold leads (form submissions with no prior contact), with distinct message sequences for each.
Seasonal Campaign Timing
Launched the campaign one week before the summer demand peak to align outreach with the moment homeowners were most likely to be thinking about their HVAC system.
AI Conversation Sequence
Built a 3-message SMS flow that opens with a relevant seasonal hook, asks a single qualifying question about current HVAC needs, and offers direct booking for interested contacts.
Automated Recurrence
Configured the campaign to run automatically every 6 months, timed to coincide with seasonal peaks, so the client never has to initiate it manually.
Architecture
The contact list is imported into n8n via a Google Sheets integration, cleaned, and segmented by contact type and recency. Contacts are enrolled in a sequenced SMS campaign via Twilio with segment-specific messaging. A Claude-powered AI layer handles all inbound replies — qualifying interest, answering basic service questions, and routing confirmed bookings to Google Calendar. Non-responsive contacts receive two follow-up messages at 48-hour intervals before being marked inactive. Campaign metrics are tracked in a live Airtable dashboard.
Methodology & Stack
Campaign orchestration — managing send timing, response handling, follow-up sequencing, and booking handoff across 1,000+ contacts simultaneously.
High-volume SMS infrastructure for outbound campaign messaging with full two-way response capability.
Conversational AI handling dynamic response qualification — understanding intent, managing objections, and routing interested contacts into the booking flow.
Unified contact list management and campaign performance tracking across all three contact segments.
The Results
The reactivation campaign ran over two weeks, contacting all 1,000+ past leads and customers with segmented, seasonally-timed SMS sequences. Roughly 3% — 30 contacts — moved through the full conversation and confirmed a booked appointment. At a $500 average residential job value, those 30 appointments generated approximately $15,000 in revenue from contacts the business had already paid to acquire and then set aside. The campaign is now configured to run automatically every 6 months, synced to seasonal demand peaks. The client described it as recovering money we were already leaving on the table. No ad spend, no staff time during the campaign, and no manual initiation required.
- 30 confirmed appointments from 1,000 contacts — 3% booking rate.
- ~$15,000 in additional revenue generated at zero ad spend.
- Campaign now runs automatically every 6 months aligned to seasonal demand.
- Warm leads (previous inquiries) converted at 2x the rate of cold contacts.
- No customer complaints or opt-outs received during the campaign period.
Lessons Learned
Seasonal timing is the single biggest performance lever — campaigns sent one week before peak summer or winter demand significantly outperform off-season sends.
Segmenting past customers from cold leads is essential — customers respond to familiarity and service continuity, while cold leads respond to urgency and seasonal relevance.
A 3% booking rate on dormant contacts is consistently achievable and generates strong ROI — setting this expectation upfront prevents owners from abandoning the campaign too early.
Security & Compliance
All SMS communications include opt-out instructions in compliance with TCPA regulations. Contact data remains within the company's own systems and is not shared with third parties. Opt-out requests are processed immediately and contacts are permanently excluded from future campaigns.
Out of Scope
The system does not handle job pricing or scope discussions. Booked appointments are confirmed as consultations; final pricing and service details are determined by the technician on-site.
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