Booked repairs, not looks
For a repair business the website question is how many jobs it books. A handful of screen replacements a month, or one appliance callout a week, or a single IT support plan signed, covers a lot of website. If a custom site books a few more jobs a month than a template, it has paid its extra cost quickly and keeps paying. If it does not, the template was fine. Here is how to tell which you are.
The template
A repair theme or builder layout with your logo, a photo of the bench, a list of brands and a contact form, perhaps with a "book now" link to your software's hosted page.
Cost: hundreds to low thousands.
Good at: existing, and being found when someone searches your business name.
Weak at: ranking for "iPhone screen repair [town]", "washing machine repair [town]" and "laptop repair [town]" as separate searches, because one Services page cannot; speed on a phone; booking with the device and fault captured rather than a call; price tables a customer can scan; job tracking; a warranty and parts page; and a business support route that reads like it was written for a business buyer rather than a walk-in.
The custom build
Built around how customers choose a repairer. Price tables by device, item or service level, editable by you. Drop-off, mail-in and visit booking from RepairDesk, RepairShopr, Housecall Pro, Jobber or Acuity with the fault captured. Job tracking linked from the header. A warranty, parts and turnaround page. Brands and items you handle. A separate business IT support route with plans and response times. Reviews near every Book button. Under two seconds on a phone. Structured data, tracking, everything in your name.
Cost: mid four figures, fixed.
Good at: appearing for each repair in your town, answering the three questions before the customer rings, booking the job without a call, and reporting which page produced it.
Weak at: the invoice, and two to three weeks of build.
Where the extra jobs come from
A page per repair. "Screen replacement", "battery replacement", "water damage", "washing machine repair", "ring resizing", "e-bike service" are separate searches with separate intent. A page each, with the price and a Book button, ranks and converts. A bullet list does neither.
Prices on the page. A customer comparing three shops books the one that told them the number. The template says "call for a price". The custom site says it by model, next to a Book button, and the phone and computer repair sub-page shows how the table is built.
Booking with fault capture. The job arrives with the device, the model and the symptom attached, so the bench knows what is coming and the first call is short.
Job tracking. Every status call is an interruption. A tracking link in the header and a text when the status changes removes most of them.
Trust. Warranty on repairs, parts quality, turnaround, data privacy on devices, real photos of the workshop. This is why an independent wins against a kiosk with a bigger sign.
Mail-in. For a camera or electronics repairer, a jeweller or a cobbler, a mail-in flow with insured postage turns a high-street catchment into a national one. Templates never have it.
Speed. A customer with a cracked screen is on a slow connection with a damaged phone. A template at five seconds is a template nobody sees.
The arithmetic
Suppose a shop with a template site gets 400 visits a month and converts 3 percent to a booking or enquiry: twelve, perhaps eight jobs.
Suppose a custom site ranking for six repairs in the town, fast, with price tables, booking with fault capture and a mail-in route, reaches 900 visits at 7 percent: sixty-three, perhaps forty jobs. Even at a third of that uplift, the additional work in the first two or three months exceeds the price difference between template and custom for most shops, and the difference recurs every month. A signed IT support plan recurs for years.
When a template, or no site, is right
- A single-bench shop full from passing trade with no wish to grow.
- A subcontractor working only for other businesses on agreed rates.
- A business about to be sold or wound down.
When the template is a leak
- The counter phone rings all day with price questions the site could answer.
- Customers ring to ask whether their repair is ready.
- You are not on page one for your main repair plus your town.
- Booking means a phone call while you are mid-repair.
- Business buyers land on a page written for a cracked screen and leave.
- The site takes over three seconds on a phone.
- It came bundled with a marketing contract and you are not sure who owns the domain.
Deciding
Three numbers: monthly visits, monthly bookings and enquiries from the site, and the average value of a job. If the site converts under 3 percent, or loads in over three seconds, or ranks for fewer repairs than you offer, a custom build pays back in a handful of jobs. If it is fast and converting, keep it and add the price tables and the tracking link.
Where this sits
Our repair business websites are custom builds at a fixed price, with price tables, booking with fault capture, job tracking and speed included, because that is the version that books repairs. The template costs less to buy and more in the customers who booked with the shop that told them the price.