AI systems glossary

Lead qualification is the process of asking a new enquiry a short set of questions — job type, location, timeline, and budget range — to decide whether it is worth a sales conversation and how urgently to route it.

No-show recovery is an automated sequence that contacts a customer who missed their appointment and offers an immediate, friction-free way to rebook.

Autonomous lead nurturing is an AI-run sequence of messages that keeps following up with a lead until they book, reply no, or go quiet, without someone sending each message.

Automated estimate follow-up is a timed series of messages sent after a quote goes out, prompting the customer to ask questions or accept.

Lead intake automation collects a new enquiry's details through a form, chat, text or call and saves them in your CRM without manual typing.

Speed to lead is the elapsed time between a prospect making contact and your business making a real, personalised first response.

Payback period is how long a system takes to generate enough additional gross profit to cover what it cost to buy and install.

Cost per booked job is the total spend on acquiring and handling leads divided by the number of jobs actually booked from them.

Booked rate is the percentage of leads that end up with a scheduled appointment, estimate, or call in the calendar.

Show rate is the percentage of booked appointments where the customer actually turns up or takes the call.

Review velocity is how many new public reviews your business earns per month, and how consistently that rate holds over time.

Lead attribution is the practice of recording where each lead came from — channel, campaign, page, and referrer — so revenue can be traced back to the spend that produced it.

Conversion rate is the percentage of people at one stage of your funnel who move to the next — visitors to enquiries, enquiries to bookings, bookings to paying customers.

Customer lifetime value is the total gross profit a typical customer produces across every job they ever give you, including repeat work and referrals.

A speed-to-lead benchmark is the target time between a lead arriving and your first meaningful reply, often set at under five minutes.

Missed-call text-back conversion rate is the share of missed callers who reply to an automatic text and go on to book.

Appointment show-up rate is the percentage of booked appointments where the customer actually attends.

Voice AI latency is the pause between a caller finishing speaking and the AI starting to reply.

An SMS lead responder is an automation that sends a personalised text message to every new enquiry within seconds, then continues a short qualifying conversation over text until the lead books or opts out.

Omnichannel lead qualification asks the same qualifying questions whether a lead arrives by phone, text, web chat, email or social message.

A database reactivation campaign sends targeted messages to past customers or old leads to bring them back for a new purchase or booking.

Missed-call text-back is an automation that detects an unanswered inbound call and immediately sends the caller a text apologising, naming your business, and offering to book or answer questions.

An AI voice agent is a system that answers inbound phone calls with a natural-sounding voice, qualifies the caller, answers common questions, and books into your calendar or escalates to a human.

An AI appointment setter is an automation that takes a qualified lead through to a confirmed calendar slot over text, chat, or voice, including reminders and rescheduling.

Quote follow-up is an automated sequence that contacts every prospect who received a quote or estimate but has not yet responded, on a fixed schedule with new information each time.

A CRM trigger is a rule that starts an automation when something changes in your customer record — a new lead arrives, a stage moves, a quote is sent, a job is marked complete.

A webhook is a message one application sends to another the moment an event happens, so the receiving system can act immediately instead of checking periodically.

An AI SDR is software that does the first steps of sales development — replying to leads, asking qualifying questions and booking meetings — before a person takes over.

A conversational AI dispatcher talks with a customer by phone or text, works out the job type and urgency, and routes it to the right person or calendar slot.

RAG for CRM means an AI looks up relevant records — services, prices, past conversations — before writing a reply, so answers are grounded in your own data.

Human-in-the-loop means a person reviews, approves or takes over at set points in an AI workflow instead of the AI acting alone.

Prompt guardrails are rules built into an AI's instructions that limit what it may say or do, such as never quoting prices or giving medical advice.