The Problem: Starting Work Without a Deposit Is a Gamble
Every service business owner has a story about the job that went wrong. Your team of joiners drives an hour to a kitchen installation only to find the customer isn't home. Your electricians buy £600 of materials for a rewiring job, and the customer cancels the morning of. Your cleaning team blocks out an entire day for a deep clean, the client no-shows, and those hours can't be filled.
Without a deposit, your business absorbs all the risk. You've committed time, resources, and materials based on nothing more than a verbal agreement or a text message saying "yes, let's go ahead." The customer has zero financial commitment to the booking. If something better comes along, or they simply change their mind, there's nothing holding them to the appointment.
The numbers tell a painful story. Trade businesses report no-show rates of 5% to 15% depending on the industry. For a business with 20 bookings a week, that's 1 to 3 wasted trips, plus the lost revenue from jobs you could have scheduled in those slots. Over a year, the cost of no-shows can run into thousands of pounds — money that a simple deposit would have protected.
Beyond no-shows, deposits solve the cash flow problem that plagues project-based businesses. If your team of builders is starting a £15,000 bathroom renovation, you'll spend thousands on materials before the customer pays a penny. A deposit ensures you're not funding the customer's project out of your own pocket.
The good news: collecting deposits has never been easier. Modern payment tools mean you can request and receive a deposit in minutes — not days. The challenge isn't the technology; it's knowing the right approach for your business.
Your Options for Collecting Deposits
There are several ways to collect a deposit before work begins. Each has trade-offs in speed, convenience, and reliability. Here's a straightforward comparison.
Payment Links (Send by SMS, Email, or WhatsApp)
The fastest and most reliable method. You create a payment link for the deposit amount through your payment provider, add a description ("Deposit — bathroom renovation, 24 Maple Drive"), and send it to the customer by text message, email, or WhatsApp. The customer taps the link, enters their card details, and pays.
Payment links are ideal for deposits because of the timing. The best moment to collect a deposit is immediately after confirming the booking — while the customer is engaged and expecting to pay. With a payment link, you can send the request within seconds of confirming the appointment. The customer pays in under a minute. The deposit is secured before the conversation has even finished.
For businesses with teams, this approach scales naturally. Your team of roofers has four estimators out doing quotes. Each one can send a deposit link directly from their phone the moment a customer agrees to go ahead. Your office gets a real-time notification when each deposit lands. No chasing, no waiting, no awkward "did they pay?" conversations.
The best payment link providers let you brand the checkout page with your business name and logo, which is important for deposits. A customer is more likely to pay a deposit to a professional-looking page that clearly shows your company name than to a generic third-party payment form.
Phone Payments (Voice Checkout)
Many customers call to book. The conversation goes: "Can you come next Tuesday?" — "Yes, that'll be £1,200 and we take a 25% deposit" — "Great, how do I pay?" If the answer is "I'll send an invoice" or "We'll take payment on the day," you've missed the moment. The customer hangs up, life happens, and the deposit never materialises.
Voice checkout solves this by letting the customer pay their deposit during the booking call itself. Your office staff initiates the payment, the customer enters their card details via their phone keypad, and the deposit is processed before they hang up. It takes 30 to 60 seconds and the booking is secured with payment confirmed.
This is particularly effective for customers who prefer the personal touch of a phone call over clicking a link. Older customers, customers booking urgent work, and customers with specific questions about the job often fall into this category. Having the option to take the deposit right there on the call means you never have to let a committed customer leave without paying.
Bank Transfer
The traditional approach: give the customer your bank details and ask them to transfer the deposit amount. No fees, no provider, simple.
In theory. In practice, bank transfers for deposits are problematic. You give the customer your sort code and account number. They say they'll do it tonight. Three days later, nothing has appeared. You send a reminder. They apologise and say they'll do it now. Another day passes. Meanwhile, you're holding a slot in your diary for a job that might not happen, turning away other customers for dates that might end up free.
Bank transfers put the entire burden on the customer. They have to log into their banking app, find the right section, type in your details correctly, enter the amount, add a reference, and confirm. Each step is a chance for them to get distracted, make an error, or decide to do it later. There's no urgency built into the process.
For regular clients who always pay promptly, bank transfers can work. For new customers booking for the first time, they're the least reliable method for securing a deposit.
Card Machine (Face-to-Face)
If your team collects deposits during an in-person visit — for example, a surveyor takes a deposit at the end of a site visit — a card machine works. The customer taps their card and the deposit is secured on the spot.
The limitation is obvious: it only works when you're face-to-face. If a customer calls to book, you can't use a card machine. If a customer confirms by text, you can't use a card machine. Since most deposits are collected at the point of booking — often before your team ever visits the site — the face-to-face requirement makes card machines unsuitable as a primary deposit collection method.
Card machines also mean that every team member who might collect a deposit needs a device. For a business with a team of five estimators, that's five card machines to buy, charge, and manage.
Invoice with Payment Link
Some businesses send a formal deposit invoice with a "Pay Now" link embedded. This combines the professionalism of an invoice with the convenience of instant payment.
This works well for larger jobs where formal documentation is expected — a building contractor quoting £30,000 for a house extension will typically send a formal quote and deposit invoice. The customer reviews the document, clicks the payment link, and pays the deposit.
For smaller jobs and routine bookings, a full invoice is overkill. A simple payment link with a clear description achieves the same result in a fraction of the time.
How to Use Payment Links for Deposits — A Practical Workflow
Payment links are the most effective deposit collection method for the majority of service businesses. Here's how to build deposit collection into your standard booking process so it becomes automatic rather than an afterthought.
Consider a team of landscape gardeners that books 15 to 20 jobs per week, ranging from £200 garden maintenance visits to £5,000 landscaping projects. Before using payment links, they collected deposits via bank transfer about half the time. The other half of customers either "forgot" or "couldn't find their banking app." No-shows ran at around 10%.
Here's the workflow they implemented:
- Step 1: Confirm the booking. When a customer confirms they want to go ahead — whether by phone, text, email, or in person — the booking is logged in the team's system with the total price and deposit amount.
- Step 2: Send the deposit link immediately. Within minutes of confirmation, the customer receives a payment link by SMS. The message reads: "Thanks for booking with [Business Name]. To confirm your appointment on [date], please pay your deposit of [amount] here: [link]."
- Step 3: Automated follow-up. If the deposit isn't paid within 24 hours, a polite reminder is sent. If it's not paid within 48 hours, the office calls to confirm the booking and offer to take payment over the phone.
- Step 4: Booking confirmed on payment. The booking is only considered confirmed once the deposit is received. This is communicated upfront so the customer understands the deposit secures their slot.
After implementing this process, deposit collection rates went from roughly 50% to over 90%. No-shows dropped to under 2%. Cash flow improved because money arrived before work started rather than weeks after. And the office team spent dramatically less time chasing payments.
The key insight is that deposit collection should be a standard step in your booking process — not an optional extra. When every customer receives a deposit link as a matter of course, it becomes a normal part of doing business rather than an awkward request.
Taking Deposits Over the Phone
For customers who book by phone — and in many service businesses, this is still the majority — collecting the deposit during the call is the ideal approach. The customer is engaged, they've just decided to book, and they're expecting the conversation to include payment.
The simplest phone approach is to send a payment link by SMS during the call. Your office team creates the link, sends it, and asks the customer: "I've just sent you a payment link by text. If you tap that, you can pay the deposit securely and we'll get you confirmed straight away." Most customers will do this while still on the phone, and your team can confirm receipt in real time.
For customers who prefer to stay within the phone call — or for situations where speed is critical, like securing a same-day emergency booking — voice checkout is the better option. The customer enters their card details via their phone keypad during the call. The deposit is processed in under a minute, and the booking is secured before the call ends. This is particularly effective for trades where emergency callouts are common: a customer with a burst pipe doesn't want to wait for a text and tap a link. They want to pay now and have your team on the way.
Having both options available — payment links and voice checkout — means your team can adapt to each customer. Younger, tech-comfortable customers often prefer the link. Older customers or those in a hurry often prefer voice checkout. The result is the same: deposit collected, booking confirmed, no-show risk eliminated.
What to Look For in a Deposit Collection System
Collecting deposits effectively requires more than just a payment tool. It requires a system that fits into how your business actually operates. Here's what to prioritise.
Speed of link creation. If it takes five minutes to create a deposit link, your team won't do it consistently. The process should take under 30 seconds: enter the amount, add a description, generate the link, send it. Any more friction than that, and deposit collection will slip from "standard process" to "something we do when we remember."
Custom amounts. Deposits vary by job. A 25% deposit on a £400 boiler service is £100. A 25% deposit on a £12,000 kitchen renovation is £3,000. Your team needs to set the deposit amount for each job individually, not choose from a fixed list of predefined amounts. Look for providers that let you enter any amount freely.
Clear descriptions. The payment link should show the customer exactly what they're paying for. "Deposit — boiler installation, 15 Church Lane, 3rd March" is infinitely better than "£500 payment." Clear descriptions reduce customer confusion, prevent disputes, and make your financial records easier to reconcile. Choose a provider that lets you add detailed descriptions to each link.
Team access. In a service business, multiple people may need to send deposit links — estimators in the field, office staff on the phone, project managers confirming start dates. Each should have their own login with appropriate permissions. Your office manager should see all deposits across the team in one place. A shared login or a system that only the owner can access creates bottlenecks.
Branded checkout. Customers are being asked to pay money before any work has been done. Trust is essential. A branded checkout page showing your business name and logo reassures the customer that the payment is legitimate. A generic or third-party-branded checkout page can create doubt — and doubt kills deposit conversions.
Instant notifications. When a deposit is paid, your team needs to know immediately. Real-time notifications — by push notification, email, or SMS — ensure that bookings are confirmed without delay and that your office has an accurate, up-to-the-minute picture of cash flow. Waiting until someone checks a dashboard means missed confirmations and unnecessary follow-up calls.
Refund capability. Sometimes you'll need to refund a deposit — the customer cancels within your refund window, or the job falls through for reasons outside their control. The refund process should be simple and fast, ideally handled from the same dashboard where you manage payments. Complicated refund processes lead to frustrated customers and damage your reputation.
The right deposit collection system turns what was once an awkward, inconsistent process into a smooth, professional part of your customer journey. For service businesses with teams, Shuttle's combination of branded payment links, individual team access, voice checkout for phone bookings, and real-time notifications addresses each of these requirements — making deposit collection as reliable and routine as any other part of your booking process.