Most service company websites end in a contact form: name, email, message. The messages that come in are vague, and the office spends the morning calling people back to ask for the address. An online service request form built around your actual services fixes most of that, because it asks the right questions for each kind of job.
Start with the service, not the name field
The first question should be “what do you need?”, answered by picking from your services in the words your customers use. “Residential windows”, “Storefront cleaning”, “AC not cooling”. Once the form knows the service, every question after it can be specific. Put the services people request most at the top, and let customers search the rest.
Get the address right
A wrong or partial address costs a wasted trip. Use an address search, let mobile customers use their location, and show a map pin they can move. Check the address against the area you actually serve before the request is sent, and say clearly when it’s outside, instead of accepting a job you’ll have to turn down later.
Ask only what each job needs
Each question should change what you send or what you bring. For a window cleaning job: how many stories, inside and out or outside only, screens. For a no-cooling call: is the outdoor unit running, a photo of the model plate. Avoid long generic forms; every extra field loses some customers. Yes/no and multiple-choice questions are faster to answer and easier for the office to read than free text.
Ask for photos when they save a trip
A photo of the unit, the stain or the broken pane often tells the office which technician to send and which parts to bring. Make photos optional unless the job really can’t be quoted without one.
What happens after they press send
The customer should never wonder whether the request arrived. Show a job number on screen right away and send it by email, with a link they can use to check progress. Most “did you get my message?” calls disappear when people have something to look at. No account or password should be needed for any of this.
How Sentra Scheduler does it
The request widget adds a “Request service” button to the website you already have: you paste one script tag, for example into a WordPress site, and the form opens on top of your page, so customers never leave it. You set the button label, your color, banner and headline, and which services show as the most requested.
Customers pick a service, pin the address with search, their location or the map, and answer that job type’s own questions, built in the form builder with yes/no, choice, text, number and photo questions. Addresses outside your service area get a clear message before sending. When they finish, they get a job number and a private tracking link, and email updates as the work moves. No customer account is needed.
Customers who would rather type a sentence can open the AI chat instead, which collects the same job through conversation and files it only after the customer confirms. With photo-first requests, a customer can start with a photo and get a suggested job type.
Where the requests land
Requests from the website arrive on the office’s job board with the address, the answers and the photos, in the same list as phone calls and emails. From there the office schedules the visit. If you set response times per job type, the clock starts when the request arrives; our guide to service response times covers choosing them.
Where to put the button
The best form is wasted if customers can’t find it. Put the button in your site’s header so it appears on every page, and again on each service page, next to the description of that service. On phones, make sure it isn’t hidden behind a menu. Use a label that says what happens, such as “Request service” or “Book a cleaning”, rather than “Contact us”.
Keep your phone number visible too. Some customers will always prefer to call, and urgent jobs often should be a call. The form is there for everyone who would rather not wait on hold, or who is looking at your site after hours.
Test it like a customer
Before you announce it, ask two or three people outside the office to request a service on their phone while you watch. Notice where they hesitate, which questions they misread, and whether they understand what happens next. Then trim and reword. Repeat after you add a new service.
Checklist for your online service request form
- Lead with the service, in your customers’ words.
- Use an address search and a map pin, and check the service area.
- Keep each service’s questions short and specific.
- Ask for photos where they change what you send.
- Give a job number and a tracking link immediately.
- Make the button easy to find on every page of your site.
A good online service request form does the first phone call for you, and does it the same way every time.