TMS
Temple Mountain Solutions
How We Score Local Service Businesses
A plain-language breakdown of what we looked at, how we scored it, and why it matters for your bottom line.
A plain-language breakdown of what we looked at, how we scored it, and why it matters for your bottom line.
Before reaching out to any business, we do a structured review — not from behind a desk, but as a real prospective customer. We contact the business, try to book service, and document exactly what happens.
The scorecard you received reflects that experience. Every score is based on something observable and specific — not opinion, not guesswork. The goal isn't to rank businesses against each other. It's to surface the specific gaps that are costing them jobs they never even know they lost.
Can a customer find you without already knowing your name? This covers Google presence, social media activity, review volume, and whether your web presence reflects the quality of your actual work.
We check: Google Business profile completeness, Facebook/Instagram activity, review count and recency, and whether the website ranks for local search terms.
When a customer is ready to reach out, how easy is it? A broken form, a CAPTCHA that blocks real people, or a page with just a phone number all represent leads that don't make it through.
We check: whether a contact form exists and works, friction points in the form (required fields, CAPTCHAs, address requirements), and whether there are alternative async contact methods.
After submitting a real inquiry as a prospective customer, how long did it take to hear back? In home services, the first company to respond wins the job the majority of the time.
We check: actual response time after submitting a contact form with a legitimate service request. Scored from same-day (best) to no response within one week (critical).
Is there any evidence that leads are being tracked and followed up with systematically — or does everything depend on someone remembering to check their email? This is where most small service businesses leak the most revenue.
We check: whether an auto-acknowledgment is sent after contact, signs of a CRM or ticketing system, and whether follow-up happens without manual prompting.
Can a customer book online, or does every job require a phone call first? The ability to self-schedule is increasingly expected — and every manual step between "interested" and "booked" loses a percentage of potential customers.
We check: whether online booking exists, how many steps are required between first contact and a confirmed appointment, and whether scheduling can happen outside business hours.
| Score | Label | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Critical | This dimension is actively costing the business customers right now. It either doesn't exist or is broken enough to turn away real prospects. |
| 2 | Needs Work | Functional but with friction significant enough that a portion of potential customers will give up or choose a competitor instead. |
| 3 | Average | About what you'd expect from a typical local service business. Not a differentiator — not a liability. Room to improve. |
| 4 | Good | Better than most. This dimension is working well and likely gives the business an edge over less organized competitors. |
| 5 | Excellent | This is a genuine strength. The system here is working the way it should — and represents the standard the other dimensions should be measured against. |
We contact every business as a real customer. That means submitting an actual inquiry — usually asking for a quote on a specific job — through whatever contact method the business makes available on their website.
We don't use bots or automated tools to submit forms. Everything is done the way a normal customer would do it: navigate to the site, find the contact page, fill out the form, and wait. If the form blocks us, it blocks real customers too.
We track responses for a minimum of one week. In home services, a week without a response to an urgent inquiry is a lost job. Response time is scored based on what actually happened — not what a business assumes happens.
The overall score is an average of the five dimensions. No weighting — every dimension counts equally. A business that's excellent at response speed but has a broken contact form still scores poorly overall, because customers never make it through to experience that speed.