GOS Direction: Where We're At and Who's Doing What

Figured it was time for a catch-up.

We've got a lot going on. Over the last six weeks I've been sat inside clients' businesses, I've built a Chrome extension on the side, Suzie's been deep in WhatsApp compliance, Tim's been rebuilding how we get estimates in front of customers, Paul's been unpicking the Business Central (Garage Hive) APIs, and Darren and I have been building the organisation structure and HR feature, the foundation of how our clients' businesses run. Lots of hares running, and every one of them heading the right way.

The trouble with lots of hares is that nobody sees the whole field. Each of us is looking at our own piece, and from where you're sat it can be hard to see how it joins up with everyone else's. So I wanted to write down where my head's at, what I've seen with clients, and how I think all of this pulls together into one thing for them. I've had a quick catch-up with Paul and Tim this morning, but feel it makes sense to get it in writing so we've all got something to come back to.

What I've seenWhat have I been up to for the last 6 weeks?

I've been filling my normal role, but I've also been sat at New Duston Garage every Thursday looking at how they actually work.

I've now got my own user on their Business Central (Garage Hive), so I've been able to see what the front of house team go through every day. It's an eye opener. Business Central can do a lot, but it's horrible to use, and I hadn't realised how bad until I sat next to someone using it. It's not just them, either. HubSpot, Infusionsoft, all of these systems get the same complaints for the same reason. Their workflow never fits the workflow of the business, so the business bends to the software, and people swap from one CRM system to the next, hoping the next one's better.

At the same time I've been living with the lead tracker problem. Suzie's team were sending garages leads and the garages weren't chasing them, so I built a Pathfinder board because Business Central wouldn't track their leads. It was painful to use. Every bit of data entry was manual. Clients in real pain, like Fitch, used it because they had to, and it did fix the problem. Once they could see the leads in front of them, they started chasing them, and they stopped asking for more work. But they weren't happy. Nobody likes typing everything in by hand.

So I built a Chrome extension, because I wanted to get a solution in front of them without adding to the weight on the dev team. It's a short term solution, but it does a job. It's built around one very specific task. Drop the quote PDF into Message Centre, it finds the customer and the car, you send the email and the text, you log the call, and it tells you who to ring next and when. The board fills itself in.

They love it. The front of house manager can see the team's leads for the day laid out in front of them, and knows exactly who needs calling and when. Nobody needed teaching, because they can't get it wrong.

Stepping backI've been reflecting on what's required

It doesn't matter how great I think our software is. If it isn't easy to use with the process built in, people will be reluctant to use it.

Sounds obvious when you put it in big black text.

It is good to take a step back and reflect every now and again. Not because you learn something new, but because the things you already know get brought to the fore, and you see what they mean for what you build next.

We've got lots of great software, and it's built well. Personally, I love Pathfinder. It's an amazing tool and I can bend it to do almost any job. The email template builder is the same, infinitely configurable. I wouldn't be without either of them.

But only a small number of our clients use them the way I would, and it isn't because they can't. It's because they're short on time. The capability is all there. What I haven't wrapped round it yet is the workflow, and that's a brief for me to write, not a gap in anyone's build.

I write the SOPs our clients run their businesses on, so our software should walk them through those SOPs one step at a time, showing only what they need at that moment.

So my thinking comes back to this. It's not "have we got good software?" It's "have we got good software they can use without thinking?"

A few things I keep coming back to, so you know what's in my head when I'm designing screens:

The opportunityWhere this is pointing

We've always built the software that garage management systems don't deliver. They're inherently bad at communications, so we've got Message Centre with SalesHawk, SaleMail and our template builders. They don't do planning, which is why we've got Pathfinder.

But having seen what I've seen over the last few weeks, I can't help thinking about the workflows that garage team members carry out every day, the ones that fill their eight hours. They all run through their garage management system, and all of these management systems are hideous and difficult to use. It's challenging using our SOPs in somebody else's garage management system.

I always knew we'd build a garage management system to go along with our garage operating system in the long term, with long term meaning 18 months or so. What I can't get away from is that while we're not building that yet, there's an opportunity open to us right now: improve the system they're already using, and build front ends that make Business Central headless.

The big pictureWhat we've all been building

We've each been heading down our own path, and every one of them is going the right way. What's been harder to see from inside your own patch is where they all meet. So here's the big picture, and where it's converging.

Darren and John Foundation

Organisation structure and HR

This describes how a garage is put together and how its people are meant to spend their time. It starts with the structure (businesses, locations, departments, teams, position levels and people) and builds up to what good looks like for each role, each day.

The path is six steps: list everything the business does (the Activity Matrix), group activities into roles, define a Perfect Day for a role (which activities, how long, how often), build perfect weeks and months from those days, assign them to real team members, then report daily on how each person's actual day compared with their perfect one.

The direction of travel is assignment and daily reporting, with gross profit per hour on each activity to follow, so a month's profit can be predicted from the plan. It's the foundation, the thing everything else eventually hangs off.

Tim Communications

Estimate Builder and SaleMail

Every estimate that comes out of Business Central or MAM looks terrible. Tim's work takes that estimate, uses AI to pull out what matters, and hands it to our email template builder, our own version of Mailchimp, so a garage can put a beautiful, professional email in front of its customer in a couple of clicks, all sent through Message Centre.

It turns the worst looking document a garage sends into the best one. Tim's also rebuilding SaleMail so we can finally get rid of Unlayer. I pulled his quote ingestion work in over the weekend and it's lovely.

Pictures to come

Suzie Communications

WhatsApp compliance and consent

Darren built WhatsApp out and operationally it's working. But with release approaching, Suzie realised there were some compliance i's to dot and t's to cross before we put it in front of customers, so they don't get red marks against them for using WhatsApp incorrectly.

That pulled in a consent change on the frontend, which turned into a proper consent admin centre for every channel. Suzie's working through the requirements now, so what we'll need to build is a small update to the WhatsApp frontend for compliance and a consent admin in the back end to track it. Darren, that one's a natural fit for you once Suzie's ready, and it's a tidy piece of work rather than a big one.

Pictures to come

Paul Communications

Data and the Business Central APIs

Pulling customer and vehicle data into GOS, tightening up the Business Central ingest with auto-tests and a Slack alert, and now digging into the APIs Business Central has opened up to all its clients.

Paul's already put his finger on it: GOS becomes the single source of truth and we enrich it from Business Central.

Pictures to come

John Communications

Inbound Lead Tracker

In New Duston, building the lead tracker extension, and sketching the screens for where Inbound Pro goes next.

Look at those side by side and something stands out. Four of them, the estimates, WhatsApp, the data behind them and the lead tracker, all land in the same place: communications.

Get those four over the line and a garage has one clean process from the moment an enquiry lands to the moment the car's booked in.

Organisation structure and HR is a different animal. It's bigger, it goes deeper, and it doesn't depend on communications being finished. That's what shapes what I think we do next.

The planSo here's what I think we do

Tie communications up with a bow, and make GOS easy to find your way round while we do it.

The question I'm always answering is which of these things puts value in a client's hands soonest. Right now that's two things: make GOS easy to find your way round, and get communications finished. We're closer on both than it might feel.

When those land, communications is done. From there it's incremental improvements, not a build.

At a glanceWho's doing what

Straight with youDarren, a word from me

Further outAnd after that

Once communications is done, three things.

That third one is the big one. It means we're building our own garage management system, specifically for the specialists we work with.

I've got a feeling we're that close to some real flow. Get the processes right and we can keep layering on top, and nobody else in the industry thinks like this. This is the conversation I've wanted to have for weeks. Thanks, all.

John, Monday 21 September 2026