CarpetBossPro Blog — Estimates & Quotes

Turning Website Requests Into Carpet Cleaning Quotes

Not every customer wants to call. Plenty would rather fill in a form at eleven at night while they are looking at the stain on the living room carpet. If that form lands in an email inbox nobody checks until Thursday, the customer has already booked someone else. If it lands where you quote, it can be an estimate by morning.

Another Front Door for Quotes

Phone calls and photo quotes are two ways jobs come in. The photo approach is covered in Quoting Carpet Cleaning From Photos Customers Text You. Your website is the third front door, and for many customers it is the first one they try.

CarpetBossPro includes a website request form and a sign-up form. Requests from your site flow into Form Responses in CarpetBossPro, so new leads are in the same place you build estimates. A sign-up form captures the customer's card, and one click converts a sign-up into a client.

What You Need From a Web Request

A website request is a starting point, not a finished quote. People fill in short forms and skip long ones, so expect the basics and plan to fill in the rest. Before you can price the job, you need:

• Name, phone, email and address. The basics.
• What they want cleaned. Rooms, stairs, upholstery, area rugs, tile.
• Roughly how many rooms.
• Pets. Yes or no.
• Anything else. Stains, furniture and timing.
• Best way to reach them. Text, call or email.

Whatever the request leaves out, fill in by text or a quick call. Encourage visitors to mention the details in their message, since every line they write is one less question you have to ask.

Respond Fast

Speed matters more for web requests than for phone calls, because the customer may have filled in three forms on three websites. The first company to reply with something useful often gets the job.

Check Form Responses at set times each day, such as first thing in the morning, at lunch and at the end of the day. A quick text that says “Thanks, we got your request. Can you text a photo of the sofa so we can give you an exact price?” shows the customer a real person is on it. CarpetBossPro's two-way texting lets the office send that from the same system.

From Request to Estimate

Once you have enough information, build the estimate the usual way: services from your service list, carpet job details, access notes. Use an estimate template if the request matches one of your common jobs. Then send it so the customer can approve online.

Copy anything useful from the form into the estimate notes, like “Customer mentioned a dog and a coffee stain in the living room.” That way it carries onto the job when the estimate is approved, instead of living only in the form.

Sign-Ups for Plans

Some website visitors already know what they want. A customer looking for a yearly whole-house cleaning plan does not need a custom quote. They need to sign up. The sign-up form captures the card, and the customer app lets customers sign up for services and pricing, such as a yearly cleaning plan.

When a sign-up comes in, one click converts it into a client. Their yearly cleaning comes due based on the plan's minimum days between visits and shows up on the Waiting List map. More on plans in Quoting a Yearly Carpet Cleaning Plan Instead of a One-Time Clean.

Don't Promise an Instant Price Online

It is tempting to put prices on the website and let the customer figure it out. Some owners post starting prices, like “3 rooms from $189,” which is fine if it is accurate. But carpet cleaning prices depend on rooms, stairs, add-ons and condition, so the form should set the expectation that a real estimate follows.

A line under the form such as “We'll text or email you an estimate you can approve online” tells the customer exactly what happens next.

Busy Seasons and Web Requests

Web requests tend to bunch up at the same times your phone gets busy, such as before the holidays and in spring. That is exactly when they are easiest to lose. Set a rule for the office: every request in Form Responses gets a reply the same business day, even if it is just a text asking for a couple of details.

If you are booked out, say so honestly and give the next open date. Customers would rather hear “we can do the 14th” than hear nothing. An honest wait wins more jobs than silence.

Every Front Door Leads to One Place

Phone calls, texted photos and website requests should all end up in the same estimate process: built from your service list, approved online, followed up by email and turned into the job when approved. Form Responses keeps web requests in that flow. To see how web requests fit with the rest of quoting, visit the carpet cleaning estimate software page.