How Upgrade Co Cut Admin by 40% and Tripled Their Quoting Speed
A Perth renovation company streamlined their entire operation — from lead capture to project completion — with AI-powered automation that gave the team back half their week.
The Company
Upgrade Co is a Perth-based renovation company specialising in residential property upgrades across Western Australia. From kitchen and bathroom renovations to full home transformations, they handle projects from initial design consultation through to final handover — coordinating multiple trades and suppliers to deliver complete renovation solutions.
Like most renovation businesses, Upgrade Co operates at the intersection of sales, project management, and trade coordination. Every project involves quoting, material sourcing, trade scheduling, client communication, council compliance, and quality control. The margins are in the execution, and the execution depends on running a tight operation.
Their team manages multiple concurrent projects across Perth, each at different stages of completion. A typical week might involve demolition at one site, tiling at another, a final inspection at a third, and three new consultations for upcoming projects. Keeping it all coordinated is where most renovation businesses struggle — and where Upgrade Co was spending far too much time on admin instead of building.
The Challenge
Upgrade Co was growing, but their processes were not keeping up. The business had reached a point where the volume of enquiries, active projects, and trade coordination was overwhelming the team's ability to manage everything manually.
Quoting was the most painful bottleneck. A standard kitchen renovation quote required measuring the space, specifying cabinetry, benchtops, splashbacks, appliances, plumbing, and electrical work, then pricing each component with materials and labour. This process took two to three business days per quote, during which the team was pulled away from active project management.
Lead follow-up was inconsistent. New enquiries came through the website, social media, and word-of-mouth referrals. During busy project weeks, the team was on-site from early morning to late afternoon. Callbacks happened when someone remembered, which often meant the next day — or not at all. High-value renovation leads, sometimes worth $50,000 to $100,000, were slipping away because no one had time to respond.
Project scheduling was a constant juggling act. Coordinating demolition crews, plumbers, electricians, waterproofers, tilers, painters, and cabinetry installers across multiple sites required daily phone calls. When one trade ran late, it cascaded across the schedule. Without a centralised system, the project manager was the single point of failure for every scheduling decision.
Material ordering was equally manual. Supplier orders were placed by phone or email, with delivery dates tracked in spreadsheets. Materials arriving too early meant storage issues on-site. Materials arriving late meant idle trades and blown timelines.
What We Built
An end-to-end automation system covering every stage of the renovation business — from the first enquiry to the final handover.
Lead Capture & Response
Incoming enquiries from the website, social media, and referral partners are captured instantly. The AI responds with a personalised message, asks qualifying questions about the renovation scope, and books an initial consultation call.
Smart Quoting System
The system pulls project specifications from the consultation — room dimensions, scope of work, fixture selections, and finish preferences — and generates itemised quotes with material and labour breakdowns. Standard renovation packages are quoted almost instantly.
Project Scheduling Engine
A scheduling system that coordinates trades across multiple active projects. Demolition, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, tiling, and fit-out stages are sequenced automatically with buffer time for inspections and approvals.
Supplier & Material Ordering
When a project is confirmed, the system generates material lists and coordinates ordering with preferred suppliers. Delivery schedules are aligned to project timelines so materials arrive when needed — not too early, not too late.
Operations Dashboard
Real-time visibility into every project stage, from initial enquiry through to completion and final payment. Active jobs, upcoming starts, trade availability, and cash flow projections all in one view.
From Enquiry to Handover
A homeowner in Subiaco fills out the enquiry form on Upgrade Co's website on a Saturday evening. They are thinking about a full bathroom renovation — new tiles, vanity, shower screen, and updated plumbing. Within minutes, the AI responds with a personalised message, acknowledges the bathroom renovation interest, and asks a few key questions: Is this a full gut or a cosmetic refresh? What is the approximate bathroom size? Do they have a budget range in mind?
Based on the responses, the system classifies the lead — full renovation, cosmetic update, or luxury upgrade — and routes it into the appropriate pipeline. A preliminary consultation is auto-booked into the project manager's calendar. Before the consultation even happens, the system has prepared a preliminary scope document with estimated pricing ranges for the type of project described.
After the on-site consultation, the project manager enters specific measurements and selections into the quoting system. The AI assembles a detailed, itemised quote — demolition, waterproofing, plumbing rough-in, electrical, tiling, cabinetry, fixtures, and finishing — with material and labour costs calculated from the supplier and trade rate database. What used to take two to three days now takes a few hours.
When the client approves the quote and pays the deposit, the project scheduling engine takes over. It sequences all trade stages, checks availability across the subcontractor network, assigns start dates, and generates material orders timed to each stage. The client receives automated progress updates at each milestone. The project manager oversees — but the system runs the logistics.
Before & After
Before Valenor
- Quoting took 2-3 days per project
- Lead follow-up depended on memory
- Project scheduling done on whiteboards
- No visibility into pipeline or workload
- Supplier orders placed manually by phone
- Admin consumed half the working week
- Missed callbacks lost high-value renovations
After Valenor
- Quotes prepared in hours, not days
- Automated follow-up from first touch to booking
- Digital project scheduling with trade coordination
- Full pipeline dashboard with revenue forecasting
- Supplier ordering integrated into project workflow
- Admin reduced to focused, high-value tasks only
- Every lead captured and followed up systematically
“We were spending half our week on admin — quoting, chasing trades, ordering materials, following up leads. Now the systems handle the repetitive work and we focus on delivering great renovations. We're taking on 35% more projects with the same team.”
Daniel R.
Director, Upgrade Co
The Results
The immediate impact was on time. The team went from spending roughly 50% of their working hours on administrative tasks to dedicating that time to site management, client relationships, and quality control. Admin dropped by 40% in the first two months.
Quoting speed tripled. Projects that previously required two to three days of back-and-forth were being quoted within hours of the on-site consultation. Faster quoting meant faster approvals, which meant projects starting sooner and revenue coming in faster.
Lead follow-up went from a 40% contact rate to over 90%. Every enquiry was captured, responded to, and followed up — regardless of how busy the team was on active projects. This alone generated a measurable increase in booked consultations.
With the operational overhead reduced, Upgrade Co was able to take on 35% more projects per month without adding staff. The project scheduling engine eliminated the coordination chaos that had previously caused delays, missed trade appointments, and material shortages.