The questions your quote request form should ask

What a tray and canopy quote request form should ask, what to make optional, and how to get enquiries you can price before the first call.

The quote request form on your website sends you a name, a phone number and one line: "After a price on a canopy for my D-Max."

You can't price that. You don't know which D-Max, which cab, whether it still has the tub, or what's going in the back. So the first call is spent on basics, and the quote waits for a second one.

A better form fixes most of that before you pick up the phone. For tray and canopy work it should ask for the vehicle (make, model, year and cab type), the tray, the canopy, the options with sizes, what the ute is used for, when they need it, and where they are. Make a handful of those required and the rest optional, with a "not sure" on anything technical. Below is what each question is for, and how to keep the form short enough that people finish it.

What a one-line enquiry costs you

Most bare enquiries come from customers who don't know what you need to know. They know they want a canopy and they know it's a D-Max. Nobody told them that cab type and tray length decide the price.

So the cost lands on you. The first call goes on questions that could have been a tick box: dual cab or extra cab, tub or cab-chassis, steel or alloy, how long. Then they need to ask their partner about the drawers, and you're into phone tag. By the time you can price the job, a few days have gone on admin, and the customer has had time to ring someone else.

When they're filling in the form, the customer is sitting down, interested and happy to tick boxes. That's the cheapest moment to ask.

What your quote request form should ask

In How to improve your quoting process I said every tray and canopy price hangs on four details: vehicle, tray, canopy and options. A good form gets those four, then adds three that don't change the price but do change your reply.

Ask for the year as well as the model. The same badge can cover more than one generation, and the fitting work isn't the same on all of them.

The first four rows set the price. The last three tell you how to answer. A tradie whose ute is off the road needs a call today. Someone planning a trip next winter, with a new ute still on order, needs a range now and a follow-up when the delivery date firms up. A fleet manager asking about six identical utes is a different conversation again.

Use is also the payload question in plain words. A full water tank, a fridge and a family on board is a very different load from a plumber's fittings, and you want to know which one you're designing for before you quote.

Ask in words your customers use

Most enquiry form questions are written by someone who already knows the answers. Your customer knows their ute, but they may not know whether it's a cab-chassis, what a lift-up door looks like, or how long a tray it'll take. A ute canopy quote form has to make sense to them:

• Show pictures for cab types, tray styles and canopy doors. A photo of each cab type settles "is mine an extra cab?" in a second.
• Ask in plain words. "Does your ute have a tub now, or a flat chassis behind the cab?" gets better answers than a dropdown labelled "Body type".
• Add "not sure" to every technical question. It keeps people moving, and each "not sure" tells you what to explain on the call.
• Offer sizes as choices. List the drawer lengths and tank sizes you sell rather than leaving a blank box. The list also shows the customer what you offer.
• Ask for a photo. An optional upload of the back of the ute answers the tub question and shows what's already fitted.

Keep the enquiry form short

Each question you add is one more place to give up. Split them into required and optional, and keep the required list small: name, phone or email, make and model, and what they're after (tray, canopy or both). Everything else is optional, and still worth asking.

Start with the vehicle, because everyone knows what they drive. I'd put contact details last, once they've put some effort in. Let the form branch, too: if they choose tray only, skip the canopy questions; if they don't want a water tank, skip the tank size.

I've seen custom-shop forms that run to more than twenty questions in a fixed order, with a warning that the form won't work if anything is skipped or answered out of sequence. They cover every option in the range, which is the point of them. The trouble is the customer on their phone at smoko who hasn't decided on a toolbox yet. They can't get past that question, and if they give up there, nothing reaches you. Even at that length, a form can still miss what the ute is for and when it's needed.

Before your form goes live, fill it in on your own phone from start to finish. Anything that made you scroll back, guess or retype is worth fixing.

What to do with the answers

A complete tray and canopy enquiry only pays off if it gets a faster reply. When the four price details are there, send a range the same day and book a time to see the ute for the firm quote. When some answers are "not sure", reply with the one or two questions that are left, not a list of ten.

Copy the answers straight into your quote template so nothing gets typed twice. Then sort by the timing answer: the ute that's off the road this week goes ahead of the one arriving in March.

If your site shows "from" prices or example builds, link the form from those pages and say what happens after someone sends it: when you'll reply, and how. Should you put prices on your website? covers what's worth showing.

Keep every enquiry, including the ones that don't go ahead. Look back over them each quarter and you'll see which vehicles, tray lengths and options people ask about most, and that tells you what belongs on your price list first.

With Fitout, the customer builds the ute in 3D and the enquiry arrives with the full build, parts and weights. A well-made form gets you most of the same answers in text, and you can set one up this week.

I can show you what a fully specified enquiry looks like for the builds you do. Talk to Ben.