WhatsApp Business for plumbers and electricians in Malta: Photos Before Price

You are on your back under a basin, one hand on a wrench. The phone buzzes on the floor: “Hi, how much to fix a leak?”

There is nothing in that message you can price. There is no room, no pipe, no fitting. If you answer with a number you are guessing, and if you answer with a question you are typing with wet hands. So it waits until the evening, and the person who asked has already messaged two other firms.

Why a tradesman’s WhatsApp leaks on the job

A tradesman’s WhatsApp leaks because the enquiry is vague and the work is physical. The customer wants a number before they will explain, and you cannot give one before you have seen the problem. Both sides are stuck, and the one who breaks the deadlock first usually wins the job.

It is the first and the third of what I call the Four Moves at once: a message lands mid-job, and what it asks for is a quote. The cost of the quote itself I cover in the quote guide. This page is about the part before it: getting enough from the customer to quote at all.

Photos Before Price: three lines

Photos Before Price gives the first minutes of an enquiry one job, so a number is never quoted blind and a customer is never left with nothing to do.

1. Ask before you answer. The greeting and one saved reply ask for three photos and a pin. The customer has a task, so the chat is not waiting on you.
2. One message is the quote. It names the work, what it leaves out, and how long the number stands.
3. A visit is the exception. You book one when the photos cannot settle it, and you say so in plain words.

Line one: ask before you answer

Line one turns “how much?” into something you can act on. WhatsApp sends the greeting message automatically when someone writes for the first time, or after 14 days of no activity in their chat. For a trade, that is nearly every new enquiry.

To set it up in the WhatsApp Business app: open the Tools tab, tap Greeting message, turn on Send greeting message, tap the message to edit it, choose Recipients, then Save.

A greeting for a trade says four things: you are on a job, when you reply, what to send, and what to do in an emergency.

Hi, thanks for your message. I’m on a job and reply in the evening, usually by 7. To quote, please send three photos (one wide, one close, one of any label or fitting), a location pin, and when someone is home. If water can’t be stopped or anything smells of burning, ring me, or 112 if anyone is in danger.

The emergency line is not decoration. A chat is the wrong place to learn that a pipe is running, and it is your name on the unanswered message.

Two settings that silence the greeting

• Recipients set to Everyone not in address book. Past customers you saved are skipped. Choose Everyone unless you have a reason not to.
• Meta Business Agent connected. WhatsApp switches greeting messages off when it is on. If your greeting stopped for no reason, check this first.

The reply that asks for the photos

The greeting asks once. A quick reply asks again when the customer has only said “how much?”. In a chat, type / and your saved replies come up. The app stores up to 50. To add one: Tools tab, Quick replies, tap the plus, write the message, set the shortcut, Save.

/photos - Thanks, I can’t price it blind. Please send three photos (wide, close, and any label or fitting), a location pin, and when someone is home. I’ll come back with a price or tell you I need to see it.

Ask for HD while you are at it. According to WhatsApp’s help page, a sender can pick HD quality when sending a photo, and set it as the default under Settings, Storage and data, Media upload quality. It is the customer’s setting, not yours, so it goes in your message. A weak connection still costs quality, even in HD, so if a photo is a blur, ask for it again.

Line two: one message is the quote

Line two keeps the quote in one place. A price scattered over fifteen messages is a price nobody can find. The quote is a single message, written to be read again in three weeks.

It carries four things:

• The work. One sentence on what you will do, in the customer’s own words from the photos.
• The number. One figure, or one range you can stand behind.
• What it leaves out. The thing the photos did not show. If the pipe behind the wall is worse, say what happens then.
• How long it stands. A date. After it, the price is open again.

From your photos: replace the leaking mixer tap in the kitchen and refit the flexible hoses. [amount], parts and labour. Not included: any repair to pipework behind the wall; if I find it, I’ll stop and tell you before I go on. This price stands until [date]. Want me to book it?

The last line is a question on purpose. It moves the ball back to the customer, which puts the chat on their list, not yours. If you keep lists, this is the move from Our move to Their move, and the setup is in Whose Move.

I do not know whether a WhatsApp quote is binding in Malta, and I am not going to guess. What I do know is that a quote with its limits written in it leaves little to argue about. For a large job, ask your own adviser how you should put it in writing.

Line three: a visit is the exception

Line three protects your day. A site visit costs a drive and a slot, so it should be the answer to “the photos cannot settle this”, not the answer to every message.

When the photos are not enough, say so, and say why. “I can’t tell from the photos whether the fault is the tap or the supply. I need to see it, and I can come Thursday at 4 or Friday at 9.” Two real times, not “whenever suits”. A visit that has a name and a time on it is a visit that happens.

A customer who will not send photos and will not be home is telling you something. It is fine to stop there. You have lost an enquiry that was never going to be a job.

If customers book a visit and are not there, that is a different problem, the same one a salon has with an empty chair, and I cover it in the Three Guards.

What the free app will not do for a tradesman

The WhatsApp Business app holds conversations. It does not run your jobs. Four limits to know before you blame yourself:

• No diary. A visit lives in your phone calendar or on paper. The chat does not know it exists.
• No invoices. The quote is a message, and the invoice comes from wherever you already make them.
• Everything sends from the phone. Greeting and away messages need that device online. A phone with no signal in a basement answers nobody.
• No scheduled sends on a +356 number, as far as I have seen. Business Broadcasts were not available on the Maltese number I checked in September 2026, so a “we are in your area this week” message goes out by hand.

If you are wondering whether to jump to the Platform, read the app versus the API first. A firm with one or two vans does not need it to ask for photos.

And if the phone itself is the leak, calls you cannot take with both hands in a wall, the fix is on the other side of the phone: the Other End Rule.

Never automate chaos

None of this helps if nobody knows what the firm will and will not take. A reply that says “I’ll come back with a price” needs one true answer behind it: a person who looks at the photos tonight, and a rule for what you decline.

So the order stands. Diagnose which part leaks: the vague first message, the scattered quote, or the wasted visit. Articulate the greeting, the photo request and the quote in plain words. Systemize them in the app. Only then AI, and only once the habit is proven by hand.

One thing to do today

Tonight, turn on the greeting message with Recipients set to Everyone, and save /photos as your first quick reply. Then ask someone who has never messaged you to send a “hi, how much?” from their phone. If the greeting comes back asking for photos, tomorrow’s first enquiry has a next step.

Questions plumbers and electricians ask me

If the phone under the sink is the part that costs you

I built this because I was sick of rebuilding yesterday’s messages from memory. I go into small firms across Malta and Gozo, shops, studios, clinics and trades among them, find the one process that is already eating the week, and take it off the owner.

Message me on WhatsApp and tell me which part leaks for you: the vague first message, the quote, or the visit that did not need to happen. No slides, no PDF from abroad, and nothing to buy on the call. If I can help, I will. If I cannot, I will say so.

Lucas