Business Systems Check
Most businesses have one weak link rather than five, and it is rarely the one they are worrying about. Fifteen questions to find yours.
Answer honestly rather than optimistically. Nobody sees this but you.
How this works
Each question is worth 4, 2 or 0 points, and every question carries equal weight. Nothing is hidden, so all of it is here.
How the scoring works, and why there is no score out of 100
There are 15 questions across five areas. Your total for an area is the points you scored out of the points available in it, and the overall figure is the same sum across all five.
Equal weighting is a choice, and it is the honest one available to us. A weighted model would look more sophisticated, but we have no evidence that response time matters, say, 1.4 times as much as mobile speed. Any weights would be invented and then hidden inside a number you could not check. This way, if you think one of these questions does not apply to your kind of business, you can discount it yourself and still read the rest.
There is no score out of 100 for the same reason. A figure like 63 out of 100 implies a scale somebody calibrated against a lot of businesses, and we have not done that, so it would be inviting you to compare yourself against a benchmark that does not exist. You get points out of the points that were available to you, which is arithmetic.
The point values are not shown beside the answers while you are answering, for the obvious reason: people pick the four. They are all published below instead.
What the overall bands mean
The band is a reading aid rather than a grade, worked out as a percentage of the points that were available to you.
- 80% and above: Strong across the board. The foundations are in place. What is left is refinement rather than repair, and the honest advice is usually to improve one thing at a time and measure it.
- 60% and above: Working, with specific weak points. Most of this is functioning. One or two areas are doing noticeably less work than the rest, and those are worth more than a general improvement effort spread evenly.
- 35% and above: Some foundations, with real gaps. Parts of this are working and parts have never been set up. The gaps are usually costing more than the working parts are earning, so the order you fix things in matters.
- 0% and above: Most of the foundations are still missing. Most of these are not set up yet. That is a normal place to be, and it means the first few changes tend to make the largest difference. Start with one area rather than all five.
Every question, and what each answer is worth (15 questions)
One answer, on the Google Maps question, is marked “not scored”. Choosing it removes that question from both your score and the points available, so a business with no local presence is not penalised for something that does not apply to it.
Being found
Whether people who do not already know your name can find you.
If someone searched Google right now for the kind of work you do, in your area, would your business come up?
- 4 pointsYes, we come up on the first page
- 2 pointsWe appear somewhere, but not near the top
- 0 pointsI have checked and we do not come up
- 0 pointsI have never checked
Do you have a Google Business Profile that is verified, with photos, opening hours and reviews on it?
- 4 pointsYes, and we keep it current
- 2 pointsIt exists, but nobody has touched it in months
- 0 pointsNo, or I am not sure whether we have one
- Not scoredWe do not serve customers in any particular place
In the last three months, how many pages or articles have you published that answer a question your customers actually ask?
- 4 pointsSeveral, we publish to a rhythm
- 2 pointsOne or two
- 0 pointsNone
What your website does
Whether the site earns the visit it just got.
If a stranger landed on your home page, how long before they know exactly what you sell and who it is for?
- 4 pointsImmediately, it is the first thing on the page
- 2 pointsThey would work it out after some reading
- 0 pointsHonestly, they would have to guess
Open your own site on your own phone, on mobile data rather than wifi. How does it feel?
- 4 pointsFast, and easy to use
- 2 pointsIt works, but it is slow or fiddly in places
- 0 pointsIt is difficult to use on a phone
- 0 pointsWe do not have a website
What is on your site that would make a cautious stranger believe you can do the job?
- 4 pointsReal work, named clients or reviews they can check
- 2 pointsGeneral claims about our experience
- 0 pointsNothing specific
Turning visitors into enquiries
Whether someone who wants to talk to you can, easily.
How many ways can somebody contact you from your website, without hunting for them?
- 4 pointsTwo or more, visible without scrolling
- 2 pointsOne, usually a form or a number in the footer
- 0 pointsThey would have to go looking
How much does somebody have to do before they can send you an enquiry?
- 4 pointsVery little: name, a way to reach them, a sentence
- 2 pointsA form with several fields
- 0 pointsA long form, or they have to ring during office hours
Do you know how many enquiries your website produced last month?
- 4 pointsYes, I could tell you the number
- 2 pointsRoughly
- 0 pointsNo
What happens after an enquiry
Whether the people who do get in touch hear back, and keep hearing back.
When an enquiry arrives, how soon does that person hear anything back?
- 4 pointsStraight away and automatically, then a real reply within a day
- 2 pointsA real reply, usually within a day or two
- 0 pointsWhen somebody gets round to it
If somebody enquires and then goes quiet, what happens?
- 4 pointsThey are followed up on a set schedule
- 2 pointsSomebody chases them if they remember
- 0 pointsNothing
Where do enquiries live once they have arrived?
- 4 pointsIn one place anybody can see, with the status of each
- 2 pointsIn an inbox, and we search when we need one
- 0 pointsSpread across email, WhatsApp and people's heads
The work that repeats
Whether your week is going on jobs that are the same every time.
How much of your week goes on jobs that are the same every time: retyping the same answer, moving details between systems, chasing the same things?
- 4 pointsVery little
- 2 pointsA few hours
- 0 pointsMore than a day's worth
Are those repetitive jobs written down anywhere, or do they live in one person's head?
- 4 pointsWritten down well enough that somebody else could do them
- 2 pointsPartly
- 0 pointsIn somebody's head
When something goes wrong quietly, an enquiry missed or a step skipped, how do you find out?
- 4 pointsSomething tells us
- 2 pointsWe notice eventually
- 0 pointsUsually when the customer complains
What the result does not tell you
It does not tell you how you compare with anyone else, because we hold no data on other businesses and will not invent a percentile. It does not tell you whether your website is actually fast, only whether it feels fast to you. And it cannot see the thing you did not think to mention. Treat a low area as somewhere worth looking, not as a finding.
Fair things to ask.
A free assessment from a company that sells the fix is worth being sceptical about.
No. An audit looks at your actual website, analytics and enquiries. This looks only at the fifteen answers you give it, so it is exactly as accurate as those answers and it can be wrong about you. It is built to tell you where to look, not what is true.
Every question has fixed answers worth 4, 2 or 0 points, and every question carries the same weight. Your area total is what you scored out of what was available in that area. Every question and every point value is published on this page, so the arithmetic is checkable.
Not on our side. The whole tool runs in your browser and there is nothing to submit: no answers are sent to us, no email address is asked for, no account is created. Your answers are saved in your own browser's storage so you can close the tab and pick the check up where you left it, and “Start over” deletes them. If analytics cookies are enabled we record that somebody finished it and which area came out weakest, with nothing that identifies you.
No. It is arithmetic over fixed values, and the same answers always produce the same result. We sell AI systems, so the temptation to call this AI-powered exists, and it would be a lie about a thing you could check.
The Google Maps question has a "we do not serve customers in any particular place" answer. Choosing it removes that question from both your score and the points available, rather than scoring a zero, so an online-only business is not marked down for having no shopfront.
Where to go from here
Where do you want to start?
A website that brings in no enquiries. A business nobody finds on Google. The same job done by hand every week. Tell us which one it is.
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