How to Automate Boiler Service Reminders for Your HVAC Business
Most HVAC businesses lose thousands of pounds every year because customers simply forget to rebook their annual boiler service. Here's how automated SMS reminders solve that problem - without the complexity of a full CRM.
The Hidden Cost of Forgotten Boiler Services
If you run a small heating or HVAC business in the UK, you already know this: most of your customers don't call you because they've found someone better. They don't call because they've simply forgotten their annual boiler service is due.
There are roughly 23 million gas boilers installed in homes across the UK, and nearly every manufacturer requires an annual service to keep the warranty valid. Add to that the 2.86 million landlords who are legally obligated to get a Gas Safety Certificate (CP12) every 12 months, and you're looking at a massive, recurring demand for your services - one that repeats every single year.
The trouble is, your customers don't have "book a boiler service" in their calendar. They think about it when the heating stops working in November, not in September when you could have done the job calmly and on schedule. By then, you're overloaded with emergency calls, and the customers who forgot? Some of them have already called someone else.
The core problem is simple: HVAC businesses don't lose customers to competitors - they lose them to forgetfulness. A well-timed reminder is often all it takes to bring them back.
How Much Revenue Are You Actually Losing?
Let's look at realistic numbers for a typical small HVAC business with a customer base of 300 households.
Industry experience suggests that without reminders, 15–25% of customers who had a boiler service last year won't rebook this year. Not because they're unhappy - simply because no one reminded them. That's 45 to 75 customers who quietly disappear from your books.
At an average service charge of £80–£120 per annual boiler service, those forgotten bookings add up quickly.
Customers who forget to rebook each year (at 20%) | 60 |
Lost revenue per year (at £100/service) | £6,000 |
Monthly cost of automated SMS reminders | £19 |
That's £6,000 in annual revenue lost for doing nothing differently - and it compounds. Those 60 customers who didn't rebook this year are even less likely to remember next year. Within two or three years, a significant portion of your customer base has drifted away entirely.
Now compare that to the cost of a simple reminder system. A dedicated boiler service reminder tool costs around £19 per month. If it brings back even five customers a month, it's paid for itself more than thirty times over.
Why SMS Reminders Outperform Email
When it comes to reaching your customers about an upcoming service, the channel you use matters enormously. Many CRM platforms default to email reminders, but for HVAC businesses dealing with homeowners and landlords, SMS is significantly more effective.
Metric | SMS | |
|---|---|---|
Open rate | 98% | ~20–30% |
Average response rate | 45% | ~6% |
Time to read | Under 3 minutes | Hours to days |
Requires app or login | No | Yes |
Works on all phones | Yes | Needs internet |
Think about your typical customer: a homeowner in their 40s or 50s, a busy landlord managing several properties, or a tenant who needs to arrange access. These people open text messages. They don't dig through promotional email folders looking for your boiler service reminder.
A short, well-timed SMS like "Hi Sarah, your annual boiler service is due next month. Reply YES to book or call us on 01234 567890" gets read within minutes and generates a direct response. No app download required, no spam filter to dodge.
Manual Reminders vs. Automated Reminders
Some HVAC business owners try to manage reminders manually - flipping through a diary, checking spreadsheets, or relying on memory. It works when you have 30 customers. It falls apart at 150.
Approach | Manual | Automated |
|---|---|---|
Time required | Hours per week | Set and forget |
Scales with customer base | Breaks at ~100 customers | Works for 50 or 5,000 |
Consistent timing | Hit or miss | Always on schedule |
Risk of human error | High - customers get missed | Zero - every customer gets a reminder |
Cost | Your time (most expensive resource) | From £19/month (+ free plan available) |
The real cost of manual reminders isn't the phone calls or the texts you send - it's the ones you forget to send. Every missed reminder is a customer who doesn't book, and revenue you never see.
Automated reminder software sends the right message at the right time to every customer, without you having to think about it. You set the service date once, and the system handles the rest - whether you have 100 customers or 1,000.
What to Look for in Boiler Service Reminder Software
Not every tool on the market is a good fit for a small HVAC business. Many platforms are built for larger operations - 10+ engineers, complex job scheduling, fleet management - and come with a price tag and learning curve to match. If you're a one-to-three person operation, you need something leaner.
Here's what actually matters for a small heating business:
1. SMS, not just email
As we've seen, email reminders have a fraction of the open rate. Your software should send SMS as the primary channel. If it only offers email, your reminders will get buried.
2. Simple setup - no training needed
You don't have time for a two-week onboarding process. The best tools let you add your customer list, set service dates, and start sending reminders within minutes. Bonus points if it integrates with Google Calendar, so you can manage everything from a tool you already use. Still working on a paper diary? You can digitize it in minutes thanks to automatic calendar scanning.
3. Automatic timing
The software should send reminders at the right moment - typically 4 weeks and then 1 week before the service is due. You shouldn't need to trigger each message manually.
4. Affordable for a small business
Full-featured field service platforms charge £25–£80+ per user per month. For a two-person team, that's £50–£160+ monthly - a significant overhead just for reminders. Look for tools that offer flat monthly pricing, not per-user fees.
5. No CRM baggage
If you don't need job management, invoicing, quoting, and dispatching, don't pay for it. A focused reminder tool does one thing well: it makes sure your customers come back for their annual service.
How Remindlo fits: Remindlo was built specifically for this use case - automated SMS reminders for service businesses, starting from £0 for 10 SMS a month. No per-user fees, no CRM complexity, no training required. You add your customers, set their service dates, and Remindlo sends SMS reminders automatically before each service is due.
Beyond Boilers: CP12, Heat Pumps, and AC Servicing
Boiler servicing is the bread and butter, but most HVAC businesses handle several types of recurring work - each with its own reminder cycle.
Gas Safety Certificates (CP12)
Landlords in the UK are legally required to get a Gas Safety Certificate every 12 months for each rental property. The penalty for non-compliance can reach £6,000, and in serious cases, landlords face criminal prosecution. Yet many landlords manage multiple properties and struggle to keep track of renewal dates. A timely SMS reminder four weeks before each CP12 is due isn't just helpful - it's a service your landlord clients will genuinely value. It keeps them compliant, and it keeps their business coming back to you year after year.
Heat Pump Servicing
The UK heat pump market is growing rapidly. Over 35,000 heat pumps were installed in the first nine months of 2025 alone, and the government's target is 600,000 installations per year by 2028. Each installation creates a new customer who needs annual servicing to maintain their MCS certification and manufacturer warranty. If you're installing or servicing heat pumps, automated reminders help you capture this growing stream of recurring revenue.
Air Conditioning and Ventilation
F-Gas regulations require regular checks on air conditioning units that use refrigerants. Commercial clients especially need to stay compliant. Sending reminders before the cooling season starts - typically in spring - means you book the work when you have capacity, rather than scrambling to fit it in during a heatwave.
The beauty of a good reminder system is that you can run separate campaigns for each service type: boiler services in autumn, AC maintenance in spring, CP12 checks on each property's anniversary date. One tool, multiple revenue streams.
Getting Started in Under 5 Minutes
Setting up automated boiler service reminders doesn't require a technology overhaul. Here's what the process looks like with a purpose-built tool:
Add your customers. Import your existing customer list or add them one by one. You need a name, phone number, and the date of their last service - that's it.
Set the reminder schedule. Choose when reminders go out - for example, 4 weeks and 1 week before the service anniversary. The system calculates the dates automatically.
Let it run. From now on, every customer receives a personalised SMS at exactly the right time. No spreadsheets, no diary checks, no forgotten calls. You focus on the work; the system handles the reminders.
When a customer books their service, you update the date - and the cycle starts again for next year. It's a system that gets more valuable with every customer you add.
Stop Losing Customers to Forgetfulness
Remindlo sends automatic SMS reminders to your HVAC customers before their annual boiler service, CP12 check, or heat pump maintenance is due. Set it up in minutes - free plan is available, and paid ones are from just £19/month.
No contract. 10 free SMS to get you started.
The Bottom Line
For a small HVAC business, the maths is straightforward. Every customer who forgets to rebook their annual service costs you £80–£150 in lost revenue. Multiply that across dozens of customers each year, and you're looking at thousands of pounds quietly leaking out of your business.
Automated SMS reminders are the simplest, most cost-effective way to plug that leak. They don't require a full CRM, they don't need hours of training, and they cost a fraction of what you'd lose by doing nothing.
Whether you service boilers, maintain heat pumps, or handle CP12 certificates for landlords, the principle is the same: a reminder sent at the right time brings your customer back. And that's the easiest revenue you'll ever earn.