The example throughout is Ridgeline Roofing, a company we made up for our roofer demo. The page and the reply flow are real and working. The business isn't.
The fields worth asking for
Ask for what you need to call back and decide whether the job is yours. Everything else can wait for the phone call.
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Name | So the callback doesn't open with "who am I speaking to?" |
| Mobile number | Most homeowners answer a text before an email. Mark it required. |
| For the written reply and anything with photos or a PDF later. | |
| ZIP code | Tells you in one glance whether it's in your area. Cheaper than a full address and less off-putting. |
| What's wrong | A short list, not a blank box: leak or storm damage, repair, new roof, inspection, not sure. This is what lets the reply change for urgent jobs. |
| A note (optional) | "Water stain spreading on the bedroom ceiling" tells you more than any dropdown. |
That's six fields, and on our demo they fit on one phone screen with the button visible. For remodelers, swap "what's wrong" for the room or project type (kitchen, bathroom, addition, other) and add an optional "when are you hoping to start".
What to leave off
- Budget as a required field. Homeowners often don't know yet, and a forced guess is worse than no answer. Ask on the call.
- Full street address. ZIP is enough to qualify. Get the address when you book the visit.
- "How did you hear about us?" Useful to you, a chore for them. Ask it later.
- A CAPTCHA puzzle. A hidden honeypot field and a minimum fill time stop most bots without making a customer squint at traffic lights. The forms on this site work that way.
- Required photo uploads. Optional is fine. Required loses people standing in a wet hallway.
Details that matter on a phone
- Use the right input types:
type="tel"for the number andtype="email"for email, so the phone shows the right keyboard.inputmode="numeric"on the ZIP. - Add
autocompletevalues (name,tel,email,postal-code) so the phone can fill them in. - Every field needs a visible label above it. Placeholder text disappears as soon as someone types.
- Buttons and fields at least 44 pixels tall, so a thumb hits the right one.
- Keep the page light. On one bar of signal, a page that waits for a big hero video or a chat widget can lose the visitor before the form shows.
- Put the form on the page, not behind a "Get a quote" button that opens another page.
The reply the customer gets
Within a minute or so of the form arriving, the customer should get a written reply by email, and by text if they gave a mobile. It should:
- Confirm the request is in, using their name.
- Say who will call and roughly when ("by 8 am tomorrow", not "soon").
- For leaks and storm damage, say what to do tonight: a bucket, move valuables, call back on this number if water is coming in fast.
- Never quote a price you haven't approved, and never promise a time you can't keep.
In the demo the reply starts from a template the owner approved. A local AI model can reword it to fit the note, and a checker throws out any draft that mentions a price, a discount or a date the template doesn't contain. If you don't want AI anywhere near it, a fixed template works fine.
Texting customers in the US means registering your business and sending number with the carriers first (10DLC registration), and the customer must have given you their number for that purpose. Plan a week or two for that check.
The alert you get
The owner, or whoever books jobs, gets one alert with everything needed to call back from the truck: name, number, ZIP, what's wrong and the note. Not a link to log in somewhere. In the demo it goes straight to the owner's phone.
After the job
When the work is done, one message with a direct link to your Google review page. Send it to every customer, not only the happy ones, and never offer anything in return: Google's rules prohibit both. The demo has a small form where the owner types the first name and the job, and the message goes out.
Checklist
- The form is on the page, reachable in one tap from the home page.
- Six fields or fewer, with labels, and the right keyboard for each.
- A test request gets a written reply within a few minutes, any time of day.
- The reply says who calls and when, and has an urgent version.
- The owner gets an alert with the job details. A bare "new form submission" email doesn't count.
- Someone sends a test request once a month to check it still works.
Related: the reply-time test and calculator, our roofer setup and our remodeler setup.