Quote Forms Asking for Measurements Nobody Knows

A form that asks for the tape measure

A homeowner wants a price for refinishing the floors in a living room and hallway. The quote form asks for total square footage, wood species, current finish and the number of stair treads, all required.

They know roughly how big the room is. They do not know its square footage, whether the boards are oak or maple, or what finish went on them in 1987.

They leave the square footage blank and press send. The form refuses, with a red message saying the field is required.

Many close the page at that point. The business sees nothing: no enquiry, no name, no record that anyone tried.

Measurements trades ask for

• Square footage for floors, decks, painting and cleaning.
• Roof pitch and area for roofing and gutters.
• Linear feet for fencing, railings and trim.
• Window widths and heights for blinds and shutters.
• Wood species or material for floors and cabinets.
• Exact dimensions for countertops, glass and screens.

The second is the clearest case. Almost nobody knows their roof's pitch, few could measure it safely, and the roofer will measure it before giving a firm price anyway.

Why the fields were made required

The reasons are sensible. The business wants to price the job before driving out, to screen out jobs too small for a visit, and to avoid enquiries with nothing to go on.

But a required field cannot tell a customer who does not know from one who will not say. It turns a question into a test, and a customer who fails it never becomes an enquiry at all.

The information is worth having when the customer has it. It is not worth losing the enquiry over when they do not.

Make them optional

The simplest change is to remove the requirement. Keep the measurement fields, mark them optional, and say why you ask: it helps us give a rough price sooner.

Customers who know will fill them in. Customers who do not will skip them and still send their name and number, which is what the form exists to collect.

Check the form's other rules too. A field that accepts only numbers rejects about 600, roughly 20 by 30, and not sure, all of which are perfectly useful answers.

Offer rough choices

Where size matters to the price, ask for it in terms people know: one room, two or three rooms, most of the main floor, the whole house.

For roofing, a bungalow, a two-storey house, a garage or shed. For fencing, one side of the yard, the back, all the way round. For blinds, the number of windows, with a note on any unusually large ones.

Always include not sure. A choice the customer can answer honestly is worth more than an exact figure they had to invent.

A worked example

A floor sanding company with two crews refinishes hardwood floors in houses and condos across a few suburbs, and repairs damaged boards and stairs.

Its quote form required the square footage as a number, the wood species from a list, the current finish and the stair count. Analytics showed plenty of visits to the quote page and very few quote requests.

Several callers said they had tried the form first and given up. One had typed not sure into the square footage box and could not get past the error.

The new form asks for the rooms from a short list of choices, makes stairs a yes or no question, and drops species and finish entirely, since the estimator identifies both in minutes on site.

A note above the button says the company measures every floor at a free visit before giving a firm price, and an optional photo upload lets customers show the worst patch.

Say you will measure

Customers hesitate over measurements partly because they worry a wrong figure will hold them to a wrong price.

A line beside the form settles it: we measure everything at the visit, and the firm quote is based on our measurements, not yours. A rough answer then feels safe to give.

It also tells them the business does the job properly, which is part of what they are judging.

Photos instead of numbers

A photograph often tells a tradesperson more than a figure would. Floorboards show their species and wear, a roof shows its rough pitch and shape, and a fence line shows its length and the ground it crosses.

An optional upload field, or an address to email photos to, lets customers show what they cannot measure. Make sure it works on phones, since that is where the photos are.

Count what the form loses

A form that turns people away leaves nothing in the inbox. The gap shows up only in Analytics.

Compare visits to the quote page with arrivals at the thank-you page shown after a sent form, counted as a goal. A wide gap on a page people reached on purpose usually means the form itself is stopping them.

Analytics can also record an event when someone starts filling in the form, which separates people who never began from people who gave up partway.

The counter-case

Some businesses really do need a measurement before quoting, such as a shop selling made-to-measure blinds online with no visit at all.

There, a measuring guide with diagrams and a phone number for help does better than a bare required field. And a business swamped with tiny jobs may reasonably ask a qualifying question, as long as every option can be answered.

For trades that visit before pricing, though, the advice holds: optional measurements, rough choices, not sure as an answer, and proper measuring at the visit.

The check

1. Fill in your own form without a tape measure.
2. List every required field and ask why.
3. Make measurements optional, with a reason given.
4. Replace exact figures with rough choices.
5. Add not sure to every choice.
6. Say you measure at the visit.
7. Compare quote page visits with requests received.

Step one shows the problem faster than any report. An owner who knows every measurement of a typical job forgets how the form looks to someone who has never thought about square footage.

What visitors see after they finally press send is covered in a form confirmation shown off the screen.

Frequently asked questions

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