Electricians lead qualification: urgent faults, installs and who to refer on

What a qualified electrical lead looks like

Picture two calls on the same Tuesday. One is a homeowner whose kitchen and bedrooms went dark at dinner, and the safety switch won't stay on. The other wants a quote for an EV charger in a new garage. Both searched for an electrician, but they're buying very differently.

The fault caller is deciding one thing: who can get here soon and fix it safely. Many will ring whoever looks licensed and picks up first. Tonight, availability matters more than price. The installation buyer has time. They're weighing your licence, what the quote includes, whether the switchboard needs work first and when you can start, and many will compare a few sparkies before they commit.

So qualification runs as five checks, and an enquiry is qualified only when it passes all of them. Run them in this order, because the early ones protect people and the later ones protect your schedule.

Searches for this topic also surface the 'lead electrician' job title, the senior sparky who runs a crew, but this guide is about the enquiries that reach your phone, form and inbox.

• Safe to handle: no shock, tingle, fallen line or fire that belongs with 000 or the network's emergency line first.
• Yours to fix: the fault is inside the property, not a street-wide outage or a supply problem the distributor owns.
• Within your licences: the work fits your contractor licence, and any extra accreditation the job needs (refrigerant, solar, network connection) sits with someone on your team.
• Inside your run: the suburb and access suit the time of day and the crew you'd send.
• Ready to decide: you know who's ordering and paying (owner, tenant, property manager, builder or body corporate) and what the job roughly involves.

Sort every enquiry into one of five lanes

Name the lane before you talk price. Each lane has its own first question and next step, so whoever answers the phone knows what to do without checking with you.

Some enquiries change lanes mid-call. A dead power point is routine until the caller mentions a burning smell. A switchboard quote becomes urgent if the board is hot to touch. Whoever answers should catch that and move the job up, which is why the trigger list in the next section matters as much as this table.

Urgent fault calls: the questions, the trigger words and missed calls

The rules and phone numbers here are Queensland's. Energex runs the network in south east Queensland and Ergon Energy Network in regional Queensland. Other states differ, so check yours. Ask these in order, and treat a fail on question one or two as a call that isn't your lead: say so kindly and give the right number.

Train whoever answers to listen for trigger words, because callers rarely describe a fault the way a sparky would. Any mention of a burning or hot plastic smell, scorch marks on a power point, a switchboard that's buzzing or warm, water dripping near a light or power point, or a safety switch that trips again straight after a storm moves the call up a lane on the spot. Tell the caller to keep away from it, and if there's smoke or flame, to ring 000. An old fuse board mentioned in passing doesn't make the call urgent, but note it, because it often turns a fault call into a switchboard quote.

Qualification fails if nobody picks up, and a sparky in a roof space can't. Set a rule for the gap. A missed-call text can ask one question, 'Is the power off or is anything burning right now?', with a reminder to call 000 for smoke or shocks. Call back in a fixed order: safety, then urgent faults, then compliance dates, then installs, and name the person who owns callbacks each day. Google Ads Help says you can schedule call assets to show only at certain times, for example only when your business is answering phone calls, so don't advertise a number at 11 pm that rings out.

When you can't attend until morning, say so. The ACCC says any claim a business makes must be accurate and based on reasonable grounds, including what staff say on the phone, so offer the first morning slot rather than a vague 'soon'.

1. Is anyone hurt, or is there a fallen line, a shock or a tingle? Energex lists 000 or 13 19 62 for these, and Ergon Energy Network lists 000 or 13 16 70. Those calls go there first.
2. Is it just your place? Energex tells customers to check with neighbours and its Outage Finder. A street-wide outage is a network problem no van can fix.
3. What stopped working, and when? Which circuits are off, what tripped and whether it followed a storm or new work tell you what to bring and how urgent it is.
4. Is there an Electricity Defect Report in the meter box? After storm damage, Energex may disconnect a property and leave one; it says a licensed electrical contractor must do a safety check, fix defects and sign its contractor section before reconnection.
5. Do you own the property? The Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) says a tenancy agreement must name a nominated repairer and say who the first contact for emergency repairs is. Tenants should try that contact first.
6. Where exactly is the job? Suburb, street and access (a locked gate, a unit block, a dog) decide whether you attend tonight or book first thing.

Service eligibility: can your business legally do this job?

Before you quote, check the job fits your licences. Electrical licensing is state-based, and some jobs need an accreditation on top of the licence. A fast yes to work you can't sign off costs more than a polite referral.

In Queensland, the Electrical Safety Office says only an electrical contractor can do electrical work in a home, and section 56 of the Electrical Safety Act 2002 requires businesses doing electrical work for others to hold an electrical contractor licence. Its classes of licences page lists six classes of electrical work licence, including the restricted electrical work licence, so a worker's card doesn't always cover every job. Customers can check contractor licence numbers through the ESO's licence search, and many will.

Section 188 of Queensland's Electrical Safety Regulation 2026 also says a licensed electrical contractor's advertisement about the business must state the licensed or registered business name, that the holder is licensed under the Electrical Safety Act 2002, and the contractor licence number. Put all three on every ad, your website and your vans.

Use the table as a screening list, then confirm the detail with the regulator in your state. The question column is what the person answering should ask before booking a quote.

Rank installation and trade enquiries by fit and value

Lanes sort by urgency. They don't tell you which of two switchboard quotes to visit first. Score planned jobs on the factors below, giving each a strong or weak mark, and book site visits for enquiries with mostly strong marks. Weak ones get a follow-up call first.

Price-first callers aren't automatically weak. Plenty of genuine buyers ask for a figure because they're budgeting. For small, well-defined jobs a rough range may be fine. For switchboards, EV chargers and anything that depends on the site, explain what you need to see and ask for photos. A caller who won't share any detail is usually shopping for a number rather than a job.

Trade and commercial enquiries need different questions again. Ask a builder which stages they need covered and how many sites a year. Ask who signs off variations, what the payment terms are, and whether it's a tender or a direct engagement. Under the ESO's certificate rules, a contractor must give a certificate of testing and compliance after installation work, so confirm early whether it goes to the builder or the owner. A strata or property manager is often a strong repeat source, but ask how work orders arrive and how tenant access is arranged.

Treat bought or shared leads from directories and lead platforms as unverified. Someone else asked the questions, the same enquiry may have gone to several sparkies, and your own lane question hasn't been asked. Call fast, run the five checks before you attend, and compare how many of those leads become booked jobs against your own channels before you buy more.

Follow up, measure and fix the source of bad leads

An installation buyer who isn't ready isn't a dead lead. Set a follow-up rule, such as a call a few days after the quote, then one more when the date they gave comes round, and then stop. Record the reason each quote didn't proceed, because 'went with someone cheaper' and 'body corporate said no' need different fixes.

SMS and email follow-ups fall under the Spam Act 2003. The ACMA says you need consent before sending marketing messages, and that inferred consent doesn't cover messages sent just because someone bought something from you. People can give express consent over the phone or by ticking a box, and the ACMA says to record who gave it, when and how. Every marketing message must identify your business, carry your contact details and offer an unsubscribe that's honoured within five working days. Ask for consent when you take the enquiry, not afterwards.

Then measure past the first call. Tag every enquiry by lane and source, and count it at each stage below. Lead quality shows up in the drop between stages. The call tracking and conversion reconciliation guide explains how to match those tags to Google Ads data, and paid search versus organic lead attribution covers splitting credit between channels.

• Enquiry: a call, form or message from a person.
• Passed the five checks: safe, yours, within licence, in area, ready to decide.
• Site visit or service call booked.
• Quote sent, with the reason logged if it stalls.
• Job won and completed, tagged with the original lane and source.
• Rejected, with one reason: network fault, outside licence, outside area, DIY help, job seeker or other. Most rejects from one reason point at one fix: job seekers mean ads need negative keywords such as jobs, apprenticeship, course and salary; outside-area calls mean checking location targeting and your service area pages; DIY questions often mean a page ranks for how-to searches.

A hypothetical example: one Caboolture electrician, five lanes

The business below is made up for illustration. Say a two-van electrical business in Caboolture runs one Google Ads campaign for every service, around the clock. Late-night calls arrive that nobody can attend until morning, job seekers ring about apprenticeships, solar enquiries come in although nobody on the team holds SAA accreditation, and EV charger quote requests sit in the same inbox as fault reports.

The owner rebuilds intake around the lanes. Urgent fault ads and call assets run only during on-call hours and target people in the service area. Installation ads run longer and lead to a form that asks 'Is the power off right now?' first, then for a switchboard photo, the suburb and the home's rough age. Negative keywords knock out job hunters. Solar enquiries are referred on and the solar ads are paused. Every ad, the website and both vans carry the section 188 licence details, and the Google Business Profile hours match when the phone is actually answered.

The office then uses one script for every call, kept on a single screen:

Each week the office counts enquiries by lane and stage, with reject reasons. No one can promise this lifts revenue, but it shows which ads and pages bring work the business can do. For the wider picture of marketing for this trade, see marketing for electricians, and for the form itself, the website conversion checklist.

1. Opening: 'Thanks for calling, it's [name] from [business], licensed electrical contractor.'
2. Lane question: 'Is anyone hurt, is anything burning or sparking, or is the power off right now?' A yes to hurt or burning goes straight to 000 or 13 19 62.
3. Urgent fault: 'Is it just your place or the street? Which circuits are off, and did it follow a storm? Do you own or rent?'
4. Compliance: 'What's the deadline, who's paying, and who arranges access with the tenant?'
5. Installation: 'Can you text a photo of the switchboard with the cover open? Roughly when was the house built? When do you need it done?'
6. Trade: 'Which stages or sites, who signs off variations, and what are your payment terms?'
7. Close: book the slot or quote visit, confirm the suburb, and ask 'Can we text you about this quote?' then note the answer.