Telling your assistant what to find out

You know what you need before you can quote a job or book a visit. Tell your assistant, and it'll find those things out on your behalf.

Two kinds of question. Always try is what you genuinely need — where the work is, what needs doing, when. Nice to know is asked only when the conversation has room for it ("how did you hear about us?"). Up to seven in total, because past that it stops being a conversation.

Mark up to two as worth a follow-up. If your assistant never got the chance to ask one of those, it'll send one short text afterwards asking just that. One text, once, ever — never a sequence, and never for something the customer already declined to answer.

The customer always leads. Your assistant answers what they asked before asking anything of its own, works one question in at a time, and stops entirely if someone declines twice or sounds rushed. A caller who felt interrogated is worse for you than a blank field — you'd get a tidy write-up about a customer who went elsewhere.

What it won't ask, whatever you type. Anything about credit, income, health, immigration status, social security numbers, or personal characteristics — those have real legal weight and your phone line is the wrong place for them. It also won't ask about budget or what they were quoted elsewhere, because it doesn't discuss money at all; prices come from your price book and you confirm them yourself.

You'll see honest gaps. Every lead shows what was answered, what the customer preferred not to say, and what never came up. Those are three different things, and knowing which is which tells you whether to raise it again.