Buyer Guides
Quote Request Intake by Phone: What Your AI Receptionist Should Capture Before You Price a Job
Someone phones for a price. Your team is busy, the call is short, and the note that reaches the person who prices jobs says little more than a name and a callback number. Pricing then takes three more calls, and by the second one the customer has already heard back from a competitor who asked better questions.
An AI receptionist helps here because it never rushes intake. It asks the same questions on every call, in the same order, and delivers the answers in one place. The work for you is deciding which questions those are.
The identity and site basics
Every quote request needs the caller’s name, the best callback number, and an email for sending the written quote. Then the address where the work would happen, which may differ from the caller’s own address for landlords, property managers, and people booking for family. Capture who will be present if a visit is needed, and how to get access.
These details feel basic until one is missing. A missing site address is the most common reason a finished quote sits unsent.
Describing the job in the caller’s words
Ask the caller to describe what they want done, and record the answer as they said it. Their wording carries information a checklist loses: the room they mention first is usually the priority, and the problem they describe twice is usually the worry. A good intake follows the description with structured prompts for size, quantity, current condition, and anything already tried.
Photos help many trades. Your AI can text a link or a number for the caller to send pictures to after the call, and log that they were requested. Pricing from a description plus photos is faster and more accurate than pricing from either one alone.
Timing, access, and constraints
Ask when the caller wants the work done and whether anything drives that date: a move, a sale, guests arriving, a lease ending. Ask about constraints that change the price or the crew you send, such as parking, stairs, pets on site, or restricted working hours in the building. Ask who decides. A caller gathering quotes for a partner or a committee will move slower, and knowing that early stops your team treating a slow reply as a lost job.
Budget questions, handled gently
Many callers will not name a budget, and pushing hard sounds like screening. A softer question works better: ask whether they have a range in mind or are pricing the job for the first time. Either answer helps. A range lets you quote the right tier of solution. A first time caller needs the quote explained in more detail when it arrives. Record the answer as given, without judgment in the note.
What happens after intake
Intake ends with a promise you can keep: who will send the quote and by when. Same day suits simple jobs. A stated window suits complex ones. What callers dislike is silence, which is why the recovery routine in our guide to missed call text back matters when quote calls arrive after hours.
Review your intake questions monthly against the callbacks your team still had to make. Every repeated callback question belongs in the intake. Within a few months the list sharpens itself, quotes go out faster, and the AI receptionist earns its keep on the calls that turn into your largest jobs. Buyers comparing systems can use the vendor scorecard to check whether a vendor lets you edit intake questions yourself or charges for every change.
I write the agents that run on clinic phone lines and inboxes: the conversation engine and the booking logic behind them, plus the integrations with Pabau, Fresha and Phorest. Everything here comes out of systems we have actually shipped, not a content plan.
