What Makes a Qualified Trade Lead? A Field Checklist

A qualified trade lead gives the business enough context to decide three things: do we service this job, how urgent is it, and what should happen next? For most local-service businesses that takes about seven pieces of information, asked in the right order and only when relevant. A name and an email address alone are contact details, not yet a useful lead.

Contact details are not a lead

Most website forms ask for name, email and a free-text message. The result is a pile of enquiries that all need a phone call just to find out what the job is and where it is. Every one of those clarifying calls is time the team could have spent quoting or on the tools.

A qualified enquiry answers the three decisions above before anyone picks up the phone. The best fields are the ones that answer those questions with the least friction for the customer.

The seven-field starting set

For most trades and local services, start with:

1. Name, so the team knows who they are calling.
2. Preferred contact method: mobile, email or either.
3. Suburb or postcode, to check the service area.
4. Service needed, in the business's own categories.
5. Urgency: emergency, this week, or flexible.
6. Property type: house, unit, commercial site.
7. A short problem description in the customer's words.

Add access constraints only when they affect scheduling, such as a locked gate, a strata building or a dog in the yard. Ask about budget only if the business actually uses it to route work. Every extra field costs some customers, so each one needs a reason.

Order matters

Begin with the customer's problem, not their personal data. "What can we help with?" feels like service. "Enter your email" feels like a gate.

Once the assistant has given a useful answer, explain why the next detail is needed: "Which suburb is the job in? We'll check it's inside our service area." A reason turns a form field into part of the conversation, and customers are more willing to answer a question when they can see why it is being asked.

Ask only what each job needs

A blocked drain enquiry may need location, severity and whether wastewater is overflowing. A hot-water request may need the system type and whether there is any hot water at all. A commercial maintenance request may need the site type and a preferred attendance window.

Not every visitor should answer every question. When you write the assistant's instructions, describe which follow-up questions belong to which job type, so the conversation asks the next relevant question rather than the full list. Keep the fixed form short and let the conversation do the tailoring.

Collect the minimum

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner says that collection of personal information through a public-facing AI chatbot must comply with APP 3 and APP 5, which cover collecting information that is reasonably necessary and giving notice about it, where the Australian Privacy Principles apply (OAIC guidance). Even if parts of the Privacy Act do not apply to your business, collecting only what you need is sound practice. It also makes enquiries faster to complete.

A simple rule: if no one in the business would use a field to make a decision, remove it.

Define the output before the input

Decide what a useful notification looks like, then work backwards to the questions. A clean lead might read:

Hot water — Camden — no hot water — house — callback requested tomorrow morning.

That is far more actionable than a 40-message transcript. Whoever reads it first can decide in seconds whether it is in area, how urgent it is and who should call.

The field test

Score ten recent enquiries from zero to three:

• 0: no way to contact the customer.
• 1: contact details only.
• 2: contact details plus service and location.
• 3: contact, fit, urgency and a clear next step.

If the average is below two, improve the questions before buying more traffic. More visitors will not fix a form that cannot produce a usable lead.

Common mistakes

• Asking everything up front. A wall of fields before any help is given drives people away.
• Free-text everything. Use the business's own service categories so enquiries can be sorted.
• Collecting sensitive detail by default. Health information, access codes and payment details do not belong in a first enquiry.
• No reason given. "Why do you need my address?" is a fair question; answer it before it is asked.
• No owner for the output. Fields are pointless if nobody reads the lead the next morning.

Setting up lead fields in Pivra

On Starter and above, Pivra's lead capture collects name, email, phone and company, and each can be marked required or optional. Quote capture adds your own quote fields, such as suburb, service type, urgency and description, and those enquiries appear under Leads, where you can filter for quote requests. See setting up lead capture and the quote request chatbot.

From there, leads go to your dashboard or, through integrations, to tools such as ServiceM8, where the quote details appear in the job description. If a person needs to step in, human handoff lets your team take over the conversation.

For location rules, the service-area qualification pattern shows how to ask for the suburb early and give out-of-area visitors a quick answer.

Next step: score ten recent enquiries with the zero-to-three test, then build a seven-field set that asks only what your team will use.