A quote request form for home service contractors
A contractor can price most jobs from five facts: what the work is, where it is, how big it is, what is there now, and when it has to be done. The request form’s job is to collect those facts in the unit you price in, and to ask again when an answer is too vague to price.
What should home service contractors ask first?
| Ask | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What is the job: a repair, a replacement, or something new? | A repair, a like-for-like replacement and a new installation are different crews, materials and prices. |
| What is the property’s ZIP code? | It rules out work outside your service area before anyone spends time on it. |
| How big is it, in the unit you price in? | Square feet, linear feet, rooms or fixtures. “A medium kitchen” is not a unit. |
| What is there now, and roughly how old is it? | Tear-out, disposal and the surprises behind an old wall live in this answer. |
| Is anything hard to reach: stairs, a crawl space, no parking near the door? | Access changes labor hours more than most customers expect. |
| Do you own the property? | A tenant usually cannot approve the work. Knowing early means the quote goes to the person who can. |
| When does it need to be done, and what is driving that date? | It separates an emergency from a someday project and tells you which request to answer first. |
If an answer would not change what you do next, leave the question out. Each extra question is one more reason for someone to stop before they finish.
Which answers come back too vague to use, and what do you ask next?
The answers that cause a phone call are rarely missing. They are present and too loose to act on. A narrower follow-up, asked straight away while the person is still there, usually settles them. Offering likely answers shows the person the level of detail you need.
| What comes back | The follow-up that settles it |
|---|---|
| “The bathroom needs redoing.” | Is that new fixtures only, or are the tile and the floor coming out too? |
| “It’s a pretty big deck.” | Roughly how big: under 200 square feet, 200 to 400, or more than 400? |
| “As soon as possible.” | Is something broken or leaking right now, or is there a date you are working toward? |
Follow up once per gap, then move on. If an answer is still unclear after one follow-up, flag it for whoever picks the request up rather than pressing.
When is a call or a visit still the right move?
Some jobs cannot be priced without seeing them: anything structural, water damage whose extent nobody knows yet, or an older house where what is behind the wall decides the price. A written request does not replace that visit. It decides which requests earn one, and it means you arrive already knowing the job, the access and the deadline instead of finding them out at the door.
How do you set this up from the Quote request template?
Acquainto has a Quote request template to start from. After you sign up, open Browse templates, pick Quote request, and it lands in the editor as a draft you can change before anything is published.
The template is general-purpose. It asks what the quote is for, a rough budget, a date, whether the person already has another quote, and where to send yours. For a contracting business, keep the date, the competing-quote question and the email; replace “How many people would be using this?” with the size question in your own unit; and add the property, condition and access questions above.
Acquainto runs it as a short written conversation instead of a form. It:
- asks a follow-up when an answer is incomplete, and asks for clarification when one is vague;
- uses a structured choice where precision matters and open conversation where detail matters;
- shows the person every answer before it is sent, so they correct their own mistakes;
- hands back one clean value per question, delivered to your own systems by webhook.
The person answering needs no account, and nothing has to be scheduled. Start free trial, see how it works, or compare plans.