Do you charge for a quote?
What trades and home service businesses need to publish
They want three quotes and are working out how much getting them will cost. A trade that charges without saying so upfront loses the enquiry at the doorstep, and one that is free and does not say so loses it before the call.
How customers actually ask it
The same intent arrives in wording your page probably does not use. All of these mean the same thing:
- “Do you charge for a quote?”
- “is the estimate free”
- “free survey”
- “do you charge to come and look”
- “callout for a quote”
What a complete answer contains
For trades and home service businesses specifically, an answer is only complete when it covers all 5:
- 1
Whether a quote is free, and for which types of work
- 2
The difference between a free estimate and a chargeable survey, if you do both
- 3
Any charge, and whether it is credited against the work if they go ahead
- 4
Whether a quote can be given remotely from photos, which saves both sides a visit
- 5
How long the quote stays valid
A worked example
Illustrative — not a real business
Quotes are free for anything we can price from a visit of under half an hour, which covers most jobs. For a full heating system design we charge £120 for the survey, credited in full against the work if you go ahead. Send photos and we can often give a ballpark the same day without visiting. Written quotes are held for 30 days.
Which page should own it
Pricing or get a quote page
What silence costs
They assume there is a charge and ring someone else. It is a question that costs you the enquiry before you know it existed.
More questions trades and home service businesses get
Related
industry
AI customer support for home services
A trades enquiry is worth a great deal and expires quickly — someone with a leak calls three numbers and books whoever picks up. You cannot pick up while under a sink. RubyRep answers the qualifying questions on your website so the enquiries that reach you are the ones you can actually serve.
term
What is AI customer service?
AI customer service means answering customer questions with a language model rather than a person. The useful implementations are grounded in a specific business's own content; the poor ones let a general model improvise, which produces confident answers that are wrong.
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What is a knowledge base?
Traditionally a knowledge base is a help centre humans read. For AI support it is the source material a representative answers from — which means an ordinary website, well written, can serve as one without a separate help centre.
Does your site answer this already?
Point RubyRep at your website and ask it this exact question. If it cannot answer, neither can your customers.