The 90-Day Lead Reactivation Playbook for Home Service Contractors

A real 90-day reactivation campaign closes at 12-18% on a clean dormant list, versus 1-2% for an unsegmented blast, according to Hatch's 2025 reactivation benchmarks and Pete & Gabi's reactivation research. The 10-15x difference is structure. Contractors who run the playbook recover six figures per quarter. Contractors who blast the list recover almost nothing.

This is the week-by-week plan. Phase 1 is list build (weeks 1-3). Phase 2 is segmentation (weeks 4-5). Phase 3 is drafting and sending (weeks 6-9). Phase 4 is measure and iterate (weeks 10-12). Each week has one specific deliverable, one set of decisions, and one Clint prompt that runs the work for you if you want to skip the manual buildout.

Week 1: Define Dormant Honestly

The first week is definitional, not operational. If you get this wrong, everything else compounds the error.

Dormant means no completed job, no paid invoice, and no confirmed customer reply in the last 18 months. Notes do not count. Email opens do not count. Tags applied by a CSR who left in 2023 do not count. The signal is transactional or it is nothing.

Pull a single number this week: total customer records and dormant count by 18-month definition. If the dormant count is under 25% of total, your CRM is mislabeling activity. If it is over 65%, the business has not been retaining and the playbook is going to be uphill. The healthy band for a 5+ year contractor is 30-50% dormant.

Get this number in writing on Day 1. Every decision in the next 11 weeks compares against it.

Text Clint: "what is my dormant customer count by strict 18-month definition: no completed job, no paid invoice, no confirmed reply?"

Week 2: Pull the List With Real Contact Info

The second week is data hygiene. The dormant list is worthless if 30% of the contact info is wrong, which is the typical state in a 5-year-old contractor CRM.

For each dormant customer, you need a current phone, current email, and a flag for SMS opt-in status if your trade requires it. Drop records with no working phone or email. Flag records where the last touch bounced or got a STOP reply. The clean list is always 60-80% of the raw dormant list.

This is the week most contractors stall because the cleanup feels endless. Don't perfect it. Get the list to 80% confidence on contact info and move on. The campaign can re-validate phones and emails inline as it sends. Perfect is the enemy of done in week 2.

See the 9 dirty data problems for the cleanup checklist and the contractor CRM audit for the broader hygiene framework.

Text Clint: "pull every dormant customer with a current phone or email and exclude anyone who has hit STOP, bounced, or unsubscribed"

Week 3: Build the Equipment and Service History Layer

Week 3 is enrichment. A flat list of names and phones produces flat results. A list with equipment and service history produces a 4-7x lift in close rate per Hatch's segmentation benchmarks.

For HVAC, attach what they bought (AC service, furnace install, tune-up, full system replace) and the install date if known. For plumbing, attach water heater age, drain history, fixture history, and emergency-call markers. For electrical, attach panel age, generator install, EV charger, or lighting work.

If the CRM has equipment tags, use them. If not, you can usually derive them from the line items on past invoices. The work is to compress invoice history into a 2-3 field summary per customer. Most contractors find 40-60% of dormant customers have enough invoice detail to enrich, which is enough.

Text Clint: "for each dormant customer, summarize their service history and equipment from past invoice line items in a single field"

Week 4: Segment Into 4-6 Reactivation Buckets

Week 4 is segmentation, the highest-leverage decision in the playbook. The segments determine the messaging.

The standard 4-6 buckets for residential service:

1. 18-24 months dormant, repeat-friendly equipment (the gold)
2. 24-36 months dormant, equipment approaching service age
3. 36+ months dormant, high-value past customers (panel installs, full system replacements)
4. One-and-done emergency customers (no real repeat history, lower priority)
5. Quoted but never closed (separate cadence, different messaging)
6. Active in last 12 months but cold on follow-up (warm bucket, easiest wins)

Each bucket gets a different cadence and a different message. Bucket 1 hears from you about seasonal maintenance and tune-ups. Bucket 3 hears from you about replacement and upgrade timing. Bucket 5 hears about parts and pricing changes. Same database, six different conversations.

ServiceTitan's 2025 contractor benchmarks show segmented campaigns close 3-5x higher than blast campaigns of the same list size. The segmentation is the multiplier.

Text Clint: "split my dormant list into 6 buckets by recency and equipment type, and rank by expected gross profit per bucket"

Week 5: Decide the Channel Mix Per Segment

Week 5 finalizes channel-by-segment. Not every customer wants SMS. Not every customer reads email. The channel mix is per segment, not global.

For Bucket 1 (18-24 months dormant, residential): SMS-first, email second, voice third. They remember you and SMS feels personal at this recency.

For Bucket 3 (36+ months, high-value): email-first with a longer write-up, then a phone call from the owner. SMS feels too casual for a customer you have not spoken to in three years.

For Bucket 5 (quoted but never closed): SMS-first with a "we still have your scope on file" angle, then email with the locked-in pricing.

BrightLocal's 2025 Local Consumer Review Survey shows channel preference splits roughly 41% SMS, 38% email, 16% phone for service businesses, but the splits skew older for high-value commercial and skew younger for residential maintenance. Segment your channels accordingly.

Text Clint: "for each segment, recommend the channel sequence based on recency and average past ticket value"

Week 6: Draft Touch 1 for Every Segment

Week 6 is drafting. Six segments × one Touch 1 each = six initial messages. Get them written this week and approved by end of week.

Touch 1 templates for the gold bucket (18-24 month dormant HVAC, as an example):

SMS: "Hey [name], Mike from [company]. Been a minute since your last [AC tune-up / install] at [address]. We're booking spring tune-ups now and wanted to give past customers first slots. Want me to grab one for you?"

Email: "Hey [name], wanted to circle back. We did your [AC tune-up] in [month/year] and wanted to give you first dibs on spring tune-up slots before we open the schedule to new customers. Same crew, same pricing as last year. Reply with a day that works and I'll book it. Mike"

The pattern: name them, name what they bought, name a real reason they should respond now. Specifics convert. Generic check-ins do not.

See the 5-touch cadence post for the full cadence structure and why 70% of leads die in week 2 for the messaging diagnostic.

Text Clint: "draft Touch 1 SMS and email for each of my 6 segments using the recency, service history, and a specific seasonal reason to respond"

Week 7: Send Touch 1 and Schedule Touches 2-5

Week 7 is the launch. Send Touch 1 to all segments and immediately schedule Touches 2-5 for each lead based on their cadence.

The cadence per segment runs across 28 days from Touch 1. Don't try to remember Day 14 manually for 800 leads. Schedule the entire 5-touch sequence at launch and let the system fire each one.

Two operational rules:

1. Reply detection has to pause the cadence per lead. If a lead replies to Touch 1, Touches 2-5 must not fire for that lead. The cadence pauses and the conversation moves to a real human or AI agent.
2. Stagger the send. Don't blast 800 leads at 9am Monday. Spread across 3-5 business days at a rate your CSRs can handle. If 18% reply, you do not want 144 inbound conversations landing in 90 minutes.

Owned and Operated podcast episodes with Wilson and Carr cover the operational mechanics of large reactivation campaigns and the staffing implications of the inbound spike.

Text Clint: "send Touch 1 to bucket 1 over the next 3 days, schedule Touches 2-5 per lead, and pause the cadence on any reply"

Week 8: Handle Inbound Replies in Real Time

Week 8 is the work week. The inbound replies start hitting Days 0-7 after Touch 1, peak around Day 3, and continue through Day 28. Plan for a 12-22% reply rate on the gold bucket and 4-8% on the colder buckets.

Each reply needs a fast, contextual response. "Yes, send a tech Tuesday" needs a calendar grab. "What's the price now" needs a recap of last invoice and current pricing. "We moved" needs the lead removed from the list and a goodbye.

Most contractors blow this week because the CSR cannot keep up with the inbound. The fix is not more CSRs. The fix is the AI agent triaging replies, drafting responses, and only escalating to a human when something needs judgment. Generic "yes, book me" replies should book themselves.

Tommy Mello has talked publicly about A1 Garage Door using AI agents to handle the first-pass triage on reactivation replies, with humans only seeing the 15-20% that need a real decision. The labor savings is what makes the campaign sustainable quarterly.

Text Clint: "list every reply from the campaign in the last 24 hours and draft a contextual response per reply, flagging anything that needs my call"

Week 9: Send Touch 4 and Touch 5 Without Dropping Anyone

Week 9 is the cadence finishing. Touch 4 (Day 14) and Touch 5 (Day 28) are the touches most contractors miss because they have moved on to the next campaign.

Don't move on. The Day 14 SMS and Day 28 email together recover an extra 12-18% of leads who never replied to Touches 1-3. They are the most underrated touches in the cadence.

Specific to Touch 4 (Day 14 SMS): keep it light, ask if they got the work handled or are still looking. The frame is "closing the loop", not "begging for the job".

Specific to Touch 5 (Day 28 email): use the "closing your file" frame. It creates a small sense of finality and pulls 8-15% reply rates on what would otherwise be silence.

See the 5-touch cadence post for the exact scripts.

Text Clint: "send Touch 4 SMS to all leads silent since Day 0, then schedule Touch 5 'closing your file' email for Day 28"

Week 10: Measure What Worked Per Segment

Week 10 starts the measurement phase. The campaign has been running for 9 weeks. The data is real now.

Pull these numbers per segment:

• Reply rate on Touch 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• Booking rate per replied lead
• Revenue closed per booked lead
• Gross profit per booked lead
• Total recovered gross profit per segment

Most contractors find 60-75% of recovered revenue concentrates in 1-2 segments, usually Bucket 1 (gold) and Bucket 5 (quoted but never closed). The 36+ month bucket usually drags the average. The data tells you which segments to double-down on next quarter and which to cut.

This is also when you replace the planning numbers (12% close rate, $2,400 average repeat ticket) with your actual numbers. The next campaign uses real data, not benchmarks. See the dormant customer revenue math for the calculator that uses these inputs and find top 100 customers in CRM for the related top-customer query.

Text Clint: "show me reply rate, booking rate, and recovered gross profit per segment for the campaign so far"

Week 11: Identify the Re-Engagement Failures

Week 11 is the diagnostic on what didn't work. About 30-50% of the dormant list will not have replied at any touch. They are not all dead, but they need a different approach.

Tag the no-reply leads into 3 buckets:

1. Channel failure. The email bounced or the SMS hit STOP. Drop them or recover via direct mail.
2. Wrong-message failure. The segment was right but the offer didn't land. These are candidates for a re-test next quarter with different messaging.
3. Genuinely cold. The customer has moved on, hired your competitor, or no longer needs the service. Drop them from the dormant list and accept the data.

Pete & Gabi's reactivation guide reports about 18-25% of a dormant list is in bucket 1 (channel failure), 35-45% in bucket 2 (wrong message), and the rest in bucket 3 (genuinely cold). The bucket 2 leads are the ones to re-target next quarter with a different angle.

Text Clint: "identify all no-reply leads from the campaign and split them into channel failure, wrong-message, and genuinely cold buckets"

Week 12: Document, Lock the Playbook, Plan the Next Cycle

Week 12 is the close-out. Document what worked, what didn't, and what to change in the next 90-day cycle.

The deliverables:

1. Final campaign report. Total revenue recovered, gross profit, by segment, by touch.
2. Updated dormant definition. If the 18-month cutoff was wrong (some segments responded better at 24 months), update it.
3. Updated cadence. Trim or extend touches based on which ones drove the most reply.
4. Updated segment list. Cut the segments that didn't perform. Add new ones based on what surfaced.
5. Refreshed list for next cycle. New dormant customers from the past 90 days enter the bucket. Re-engaged customers who closed exit the bucket. The list is dynamic.

This is also when you decide whether to run the playbook quarterly forever or whether the structure needs to change. Most contractors who run two cycles never go back. The compounding revenue is too obvious to ignore.

John Wilson's team at Wilson Companies has reported reactivation revenue compounding 15-25% per cycle for the first four cycles, then plateauing as the list quality stabilizes.

Text Clint: "summarize the 90-day campaign results, identify the next-quarter improvements, and prep the refreshed list for cycle 2"

Or Skip the 90-Day Buildout: Text Clint

The playbook works. It is also a lot of work. Twelve weeks of list-building, segmentation, drafting, scheduling, sending, replying, measuring, and iterating, run by either you or a team that gets the structure right.

Most contractors stall in week 2 (data hygiene) or week 7 (operational launch). The friction is not the strategy, it is the execution across CRM, Mailchimp, Twilio, and a CSR's notebook. Wiring those four systems together is fragile.

Clint runs the entire playbook from one prompt. The agent reads your real Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Workiz, or GoHighLevel. It segments the dormant list. It drafts the cadence. It sends from your real Gmail and SMS. It pauses on reply. It measures per segment. It iterates per cycle.

The conversion line: text Clint, get a 5-touch cadence drafted in seconds and sent from your real Gmail and SMS. No Mailchimp, no Zapier.

See the related guides: the AI customer reactivation guide, the customer reactivation from CRM playbook, find cold quotes in CRM, how to find alive leads, dead leads in your CRM worth $10K each, the home service KPIs playbook, and the AI lead qualification agents guide.

Text Clint: "run the entire 90-day reactivation playbook on my CRM, starting with bucket 1 today"

Sources

• Hatch 2025 customer reactivation benchmarks - 12-14% reactivation close rate, segmentation lift data
• Pete & Gabi reactivation research - dormancy bucket close rates, no-reply diagnostic
• ServiceTitan 2025 AI in the Trades Report - segmented vs blast campaign benchmarks
• BrightLocal 2025 Local Consumer Review Survey - channel preference splits
• Owned and Operated podcast (Wilson, Carr) - operational mechanics of large reactivation campaigns
• Tommy Mello / A1 Garage Door public talks - AI triage on reactivation replies at scale