What should I ask customers when they request a service?
Short answerAsk every new customer for the address, the best contact method, the size or type of the job, how you will get access, anything unusual such as pets or stairs, and the date by which they need it done. Those few answers prevent most wasted trips and surprise price changes.
The explanation
Intake questions have one job: remove surprises. Ask only what changes the visit. The address confirms you serve the area. The job description sets duration and price. Access questions cover gates, parking, and whether someone will be home.
Add trade specific questions sparingly. A cleaner wants bedrooms, bathrooms, and pets. A plumber wants the symptom, its location, and whether water is shut off. A lawn crew wants lot size and gate access. Each extra field loses some people, so test the form by asking what you would regret not knowing.
Always ask about timing, and ask how they prefer to be reached. A customer who needs work done before an event, or who only reads texts, changes how you schedule and reply. Capture the answers in the customer record so you never ask the same thing twice.
Steps
- List what changes the price or duration of a visit and ask only those items.
- Ask about access, parking, pets, and who will be home.
- Ask for the date they need the work done and how they prefer contact.
- Store the answers on the customer record for future visits.
How Apex does it
In progress
Part of this is built. The rest is not. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
Apex is designed with intake questions on the booking form, photo upload on the form, and custom fields on a customer or job. The intake questions and upload are partly built, and custom fields are a built screen not yet saving real data.
- BK25Intake questions on booking form(In progress)
- BK26Photo upload on booking form(In progress)
- LD05Custom fields on customer/job(Rolling out)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.
Where this question comes from: owners type it, or a close variant, into search boxes. It was returned by public search suggestions (Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo) when we collected them on 2026-10-06; the exact phrase seen was “what to ask your customers?”. We do not have search volumes.