LEAD QUALIFICATION
Spend your time speaking to better opportunities.
The basics get asked in the conversation itself — what the job is, where it is, when they want it done and roughly what's involved — so you know what you're walking into.
THE PROBLEM
Two hours of driving to find out it was never a job.
A name and a phone number tell you nothing. So you ring, you arrange a visit, you drive across the county — and it turns out they wanted a patch repair, or they're getting six prices, or the work is a year away.
Nobody's at fault. The information simply wasn't collected while they were still typing.
WHAT CHANGES
Your questions, asked every time
Agreed with you up front. Usually four or five — enough to be useful, not an interrogation.
Obvious mismatches filtered early
Wrong area, wrong service, or work you don't take on — handled politely without taking up your day.
The good ones move faster
Someone ready to go straight to a survey gets offered one there and then, instead of joining a callback list.
A written summary, not a name
The details sit on the lead card so any member of your team can pick up the conversation.
Worth saying plainly: no system removes every unsuitable enquiry. Some people don't answer questions, and some jobs only reveal themselves on site. This reduces wasted visits — it doesn't eliminate them.
Questions that earn their place
Examples from real trades. Yours would be written around what actually changes your decision to quote.
ROOFING
EXTENSIONS & BUILD
LANDSCAPING
WHERE IT FITS
It sits between the first reply and the appointment.
Qualification only works if something is already responding quickly, and it's most valuable when the good leads can be offered a slot immediately.
USEFUL IF
■Site visits and quotes cost you real time
■You take on larger projects worth qualifying for
■You get plenty of enquiries but too many are the wrong sort
■Whoever answers the phone asks different things each time
Questions about qualification
Do you ask about budget?
Only where it's appropriate and you want it asked. For a £40k extension it's a fair question. For a leaking gutter it just puts people off.
What happens to leads that don't qualify?
They're answered politely and marked in the CRM rather than deleted — you can still see them, and some come back later with a bigger job.
Is a human involved?
You are, whenever you want to be. The system opens the conversation and gathers the basics; anything unusual is flagged for you rather than guessed at.
Won't people find the questions annoying?
Most prefer it to waiting three days for a call. The trick is asking few enough questions, in a conversation rather than a form.
What would you want to know before quoting?
Answer that and we've more or less written your qualification questions.