An air conditioning company based in London came to us with a problem most trades businesses will recognise. Small residential jobs were being lost to cheaper one-man bands, and to national firms offering an instant quote online. Meanwhile their surveyor was spending whole days visiting homes to price jobs that often never went ahead.
We built them an instant quote form where homeowners choose their job, see a fixed price and pay a deposit or pick a finance option there and then. Behind it sits a login-only booking manager so the team can follow enquiries through to completion. Here’s what we built, why we built it in WordPress first, and what happened in the first months.
The small-job squeeze: undercut on price, drowning in quotes
Before the new system, every residential enquiry followed the same path. Someone asked for a quote, a surveyor visited, wrote a report and sent a price. The client told us their surveyor could visit around four homes a day and write four reports, winning roughly one job in four. Those were the figures they gave us for the old process, rather than a measured comparison with the new one.
That’s a lot of skilled time spent on people who were, in effect, just asking “how much?”.
At the same time the residential market was moving towards firms that show a price online and take a deposit straight away. For a homeowner who wants one unit in a bedroom, that’s an easy choice: why wait a week for a survey when another firm will give you a price in two minutes?
What did the instant quote change for the customer?
Think of the old way as cooking a full meal for every diner who glances at the menu. The new way takes the order, and a deposit, first.
For simple jobs, most of what a surveyor needs to know can be asked as a set of plain questions. How many rooms? What type of property? Which floor? How big is the room and how much sun does it get? Where will the outdoor unit go?
Designing the questions
Getting the questions right took more thought than the technology. Each one has to be something a homeowner can answer without a tape measure or a technical background, and each one has to change the price or the product in a way that matters.
So the form explains itself as it goes. The floor question says higher storeys cost a bit more because of the extra equipment needed for the outdoor unit, and that second or third floors may need scaffolding. The room size question gives everyday comparisons, like “around the size of a small double bedroom”, and reassures people that the suitability of the unit will be checked later. There are questions about how much sun the room gets, whether the indoor unit goes on an outside wall, where the outdoor unit will sit and how far apart the two units will be.
Then the customer chooses a range, from no-frills units to premium and concealed designs, before seeing specific products. That keeps the choice manageable: nobody is scrolling through every model a supplier makes.
The customer answers on their phone or laptop, then sees a short list of suitable units with a fixed price including installation. They can add options such as a dedicated electrical supply or trunking to hide the pipework, and watch the total update.
What did we build: the form, payments and booking manager?
The first phase had three parts.
1. The instant quote form. Built for simple, single-unit residential installations. The customer describes the job, gets a price and can book and pay online. Anything more complex, like five or more rooms, is routed to the team rather than priced automatically.
2. Three ways to pay at the point of booking.
- Pay in 3 through Klarna.
- A 50% card payment through Stripe, which also supports Apple Pay and Google Pay on the web.
- A 10% deposit with the balance on interest-free instalments through Novuna, a UK provider of point-of-sale retail finance.
3. A login-only booking manager. This is a simple mini-CRM where the team sees every enquiry and tracks it through callbacks to completion. It means nobody is working from a spreadsheet or an inbox to remember who needs a call back.
The quote form went live in January 2026 and the login-only booking manager followed in February.
Why we built it in WordPress first
It would have been easy to jump straight to a bespoke business application. We didn’t, on purpose.
The client already had a WordPress site we maintained, so we could build the form and booking manager there quickly and put the idea in front of real customers. If homeowners didn’t want to price and pay online, the client would find out cheaply. If they did, the client would have real data to plan the next step with.
That next step is now planned: a Laravel business application covering their wider quoting process. If you’re weighing up the same decision, our guide to what a custom business application actually looks like explains the difference in plain English.
What happened after we launched the instant quote form?
For the reported January to August 2026 period, our project figures show 544 enquiries through the instant quote form and 21 customers who confirmed and paid online. The quote form went live in January; we added the booking manager in February. These are figures for the quote form, rather than a before-and-after comparison of the booking manager.
Those 21 payments are confirmed online bookings, not the total number of jobs won from all 544 enquiries. Some customers may have booked after a callback, and we do not have a verified count of those offline conversions. It would be misleading to treat 21 divided by 544 as the overall conversion rate.
The bigger change for the surveyor is where their time goes. Instead of every interested homeowner needing a visit before seeing a price, customers with a straightforward single-unit job can get an instant quote and pay online. The survey then checks the details before installation. More complex jobs still go to a person.
We have not measured a before-and-after conversion rate or a change in cashflow in days or pounds. What we can show is the process: a customer can make a 50% card payment, choose Klarna Pay in 3, or pay a 10% deposit and apply for interest-free instalments through Novuna at the point of booking. The payment route depends on the customer’s choice and the provider’s terms.
Is an instant quote form right for your business?
It works best when:
- a decent share of your jobs are simple and similar, like a single unit in a single room
- the things that change the price can be asked as plain questions
- you’re losing small jobs to firms that show prices online
It isn’t a replacement for a survey on complex work. This client still speaks to anyone with five or more rooms rather than pricing those jobs automatically. The form handles the jobs a price list can handle and frees up skilled time for the ones it can’t.
If your current website enquiry form is a name, email and message box, have a look at why website forms matter and how they can increase enquiries first. And if customers start a booking then drop off, we’ve written about abandoned booking recovery for service businesses.
Could this work for your business?
A quote form needs clear pricing rules, a way to handle exceptions and a booking process your team can manage. Start with one repeatable service and decide which jobs should be passed to a person.
Want to talk about something similar for your business? We build custom business apps and websites for trades businesses. Book a call with us.
Read More:
Frequently Asked Questions
An instant quote form asks a customer a short set of questions about their job and shows a price straight away, without waiting for a site visit. The best ones also let the customer book and pay, so the quote turns into a confirmed job in one sitting.
For simple, repeatable jobs, yes, as long as the survey confirms the details before installation. For complex or unusual work, the form should route the customer to a person instead of guessing a price. Setting that boundary is one of the first decisions to make.
The form connects to payment providers. Card payments, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, can go through a provider such as Stripe, while finance options come from providers such as Klarna or a retail finance lender. The customer pays at the end of the quote, and the booking appears in your system.
The rules depend on the finance product and the way your business offers it. Speak to your provider and take regulated advice about your own arrangement before adding finance to checkout.
Not if the process is designed well. The customer still speaks to your team for a callback and meets your surveyor before installation. The difference is that the conversation starts after they’ve committed, rather than before.
It depends on the number of pricing rules, exceptions, payment routes and booking steps. Define one repeatable service first, then scope the build and testing around it. A reliable timescale needs those details.
