Turn Up With the Right Gear, Every Time

Not if you ask them naturally rather than reading a form aloud. The whole list takes about ninety seconds in normal conversation, and customers generally appreciate it, being asked sensible questions reads as competence rather than as an interrogation. If it feels long, prioritise: mobile number, address, a photo, access, and the money expectation. Those five prevent the large majority of wasted trips, and you can pick up the rest during the confirmation the day before.

Ask while you are still on the phone and tell them why. That it helps you bring the right parts and avoid a second visit. Then text them immediately so they have your number in front of them and can simply reply to it, rather than expecting them to find your details later. Framed as saving them a return visit, most people are happy to do it. The main reason customers do not send photos is that they were asked in a way that made it feel optional.

You can, provided you have set the expectation clearly beforehand. A callout fee stated on the phone and confirmed by text is generally reasonable and enforceable in a way that a fee mentioned for the first time on the doorstep is not. That said, prevention beats collection. The questions on this list cost ninety seconds and avoid the conversation entirely. Where a wasted trip is genuinely the customer’s doing and you did set expectations, charging is fair; where you never asked about access, it is a harder position to hold.

Ask the age of the property as a matter of routine, since it is a neutral question that tells you a great deal. Australian homes built before the late 1980s may contain asbestos materials, and the specific risk and your obligations depend on your trade, the work involved and the state or territory you operate in. Knowing the property age before you attend lets you arrive prepared rather than making the assessment on the spot. Follow whatever your trade’s licensing body and the relevant work health and safety regulator require. This is a prompt to ask, not safety advice.

Yes, and this list works well as a script for exactly that purpose, whether the phone is answered by a family member, an employee, an answering service or an automated system. In fact a system generally captures details more consistently than a busy person does, because it never skips a question when it is in a hurry. The important part is that the answers reach you in a usable form, as a text or into your job system, rather than sitting in a voicemail you still have to listen to and write down.

That is itself useful information. A customer who cannot describe the problem, does not know the brand and cannot send a photo is telling you the job is less defined than it sounded, which means you should either allow extra time or treat the visit as an assessment rather than a repair. Price it accordingly and say so on the phone. The mistake is assuming a vague description means a simple job, vague descriptions are where most blown-out time estimates come from.