We re-engaged with 1,500+ of our customers in our first month with Delight, and received quote inquiries and sales from customers who’d been disengaged with us for up to three years.
Matt Thompson
General Manager, NB Trades and Services
For trade businesses that grew on reputation, new work often arrives without much marketing at all. But reputation doesn’t follow up on a quote sent three weeks ago, or check in with a customer who hasn’t called in months.
For NB Trades and Services, a family-owned regional Queensland business with almost 30 years of history, that gap was costing work the team had already earned.
By adding Delight, NB Trades and Services found a consistent way to follow up on quotes, reconnect with customers who had drifted away, and win back business from some who had been inactive for up to three years.
Based in Toowoomba, NB Trades and Services works with residential and commercial customers across three divisions: HVAC, refrigeration, and electrical. Its work ranges from residential split systems and commercial ducted air conditioning to cold rooms for supermarkets and cold store logistics firms, switchboard upgrades, and LED lighting.
“I’ve always called the electrical side the sleeping giant,” said Matt Thompson, who joined as General Manager in January 2026. “It’s now starting to gain traction on its own.”
The business grew to around 25 staff and a large customer base largely on its reputation, with little targeted marketing or strategic direction.
“For a long time, anyone in regional or Southwest Queensland who needed a cold room or refrigeration service would call us,” Thompson said. “It was word around town. People asked each other who they used, and they came to us.”
Customer follow-up was manual. Office staff called or emailed customers about quotes, complaints, and general engagement, fitting it in when they could.
“It’s easy to follow up on quotes you sent two or three days ago,” Thompson said. “It’s much harder to stay consistent with quotes or inquiries from two or three weeks ago, or two or three months ago.”
The work was labor-intensive and inconsistent, and it was always competing with something more urgent.
“One day it’s a priority, and the next day some other disaster takes your attention away,” he said. “You’ve got payroll, accounts receivable, and accounts payable to deal with, then an HR issue or a customer complaint, and all of a sudden a week or two goes by and you’ve forgotten to get back to your quotes.”
Delight connects directly to existing customer records, jobs, quotes, leads, and technician notes, so they’re available as soon as they change, with no separate integration to maintain.
Delight works through that history to decide which customers to contact and why. Where equipment isn’t recorded as an asset, it can piece together what’s on site from past job notes. Each message is written for that customer, in the business’s own branding and voice.
New users start slowly. Delight queues a small number of messages per day and sends a preview the day before they go out, so the team can review and adjust before volume increases.
Thompson set up Delight himself, building out NB Trades and Services’ service catalog over the first five to seven days.
“I’m 100% self-taught on Delight,” he said. “It’s very intuitive and not difficult to use. Don’t be afraid of it. You can’t break it.”
His biggest lesson was being specific. At first, annual service reminders weren’t going out to customers he knew were due. Splitting broad services into more specific ones, such as separating residential and commercial servicing by service interval, fixed it.
“It came down to the fact that I wasn’t being specific enough with the instructions I was giving the tool. Once I fixed that, the right reminders started going out. It was an easy fix,” Thompson said.
In its first month, Delight-driven outreach delivered:
“It’s certainly proven to be money well spent,” Thompson said. “It’s been consistent and very professional.”
The biggest gains came from high-value customers who had quietly stopped calling.
“Delight reached into our database and found high-value customers who had been spending a reasonable amount with us each month or each year, and then for some reason had dropped off,” he said. “Being able to reach back and re-engage those customers is where the value has come from.”
Delight also brings customers back for services beyond the one in the message. An email about a solar or battery installation might not lead to a solar job, but it can remind a customer that their air conditioners haven’t been serviced in 12 months, 18 months, or two years.
“Even when it doesn’t win the solar job, it brings the customer back to us for another service,” Thompson said.
Quote follow-up runs automatically once a quote reaches a set status, so the quoting process itself doesn’t change. NB Trades and Services uses a three-stage sequence: within 24 hours of sending, again three days later, and again a week after that.
“We’re also getting higher quote conversions using Delight’s quote follow-up,” Thompson said. “It keeps us front of mind with customers without pestering them. It’s just polite follow-up.”
