Why

You're a mobile valeter with six inbound channels and a tiny team — the bottleneck isn't pipeline management, it's that an Instagram DM at 9pm and a walk-in at 11am end up in completely different places with no shared view. With at most one or two inquiries a day, what you need is one inbox-of-truth and a way to send quotes and book slots without thumb-typing on a phone in a driveway.

What you actually need

1. WhatsApp Business app (free) — port your business number, set labels: "New", "Quoted", "Booked", "Done", "Follow-up". Every inquiry from every channel gets forwarded or re-pinged here so one thread = one job.
2. Google Sheets (free) — one tab "Jobs 2026" with columns: Date / Name / Channel / Vehicle / Service / Quote / Date Booked / Status / Deposit. Shared with your 2–3 team so anyone can see what's on.
3. A habit — the end-of-day 10-minute sweep — last thing before you pack up, one person opens Email, Instagram DM, web form, and missed calls, and drags every new inquiry into WhatsApp + the sheet. Nothing sleeps in a channel overnight.

Do this today

Install WhatsApp Business from the Play Store / App Store on the team's main work phone, verify your business number, then Settings → Business tools → Labels → '+' and create the five labels above. Then go to Settings → Business tools → Away message and set one for outside working hours so a 10pm Instagram-redirected lead gets an instant "we'll quote you by 9am" reply. By tomorrow morning no inquiry from any of your six channels can sit unread for 12 hours without someone seeing it.

What to ignore

Skip QuoteIQ (~$30/mo) and HiveSuite — both are built for established detailing shops with crews, recurring contracts, and route density you don't have at 10–50 jobs/month. Also ignore Jobber and Housecall Pro pitches at this stage; they start around £29–£49/mo per user and you'll use 10% of the features while still typing the other 90% into WhatsApp.

What doing nothing costs you

A conservative 15% slippage on 50 inquiries/month = ~7 lost jobs. At even a £60 average valet, that's roughly £5,000/year driving past your van because someone didn't reply to a DM.

When to revisit this

When you're booking 80+ jobs/month or you add a second van with its own driver and the sheet stops telling you who's where.