A short product tutorial by Mike Andes (founder & CEO of Copilot CRM) explaining how Copilot CRM can require customers to add a credit card on file as part of accepting an estimate. He contrasts the old manual workflow (collecting cards after acceptance) with the smoother Copilot flow where settings enforce card-on-file and autopay at acceptance, optional per-customer overrides, and the resulting reduced onboarding friction and improved close rates.
Chapters
Hey, it's Mike Andes, founder and CEO of Copilot CRM. And I know the email title might have seen a little bit crazy. You never asked for credit card information. You're right, I never have to ask clients their credit card information and I'm going to explain why, because inside of Copilot, yes, we do have credit cards, we allow for auto pay, etc. But the reason I've never had to ask clients for their credit card information is because it it's baked into the system of accepting an estimate. Inside of Copa, you have the options in your settings to require a credit card from your customers before they click accept. Because see, in the past we would have customers accept for mowing service, for example, at Augusta Lawn Care. And we would have to then sit them through an automation of trying to get their credit card information after they accepted the estimate. So on one hand I have this accepted estimate, but the other hand I require a credit card and file and, and so they accept the estimate. They think they're good, they're like, great, fantastic. And I got to send them an email saying like, yes, thank you for joining Augusta and we look forward to serving you. But hey, before you get on service we need you to fill out this other form. And it required them to get another level of friction to actually getting the job started. And so what we did instead inside of Copilot is so makes it so much smoother for the customer is you can have in your settings where hey, I, I want everyone to have a credit card on file or certain parameters for them to have a credit card and file. And you can disable it for individual customers too. So like commercial clients, you can just turn it off for them. And what it allows you to do is when the customer clicks accept proposal, when they're in the estimate and they looking in the client portal, it'll simply say fantastic, we just need a credit card on file and then we can go ahead and get this accepted for you. They put the card on file and now when you get notified of an accepted estimate, you already know the credit card's on file in the client portal and autopay has been enabled. This is going to save so much time and furthermore lead to a better close ratio because instead of you always crossing your fingers and hoping customers put their credit card information on or having to check whether or not they actually put the card on file before you initiate service, you now know when an estimate comes in, it tells you it's been accepted, the credit card is on file and autopay has been enabled and furthermore, if they ever try to take it off of autopay, they aren't able to and can lock it inside of the settings individually for each customer. This is an absolute game changer and reduces the friction and takes away the entire step that is usually required to onboard a new customer.
