What the 30-second lead qualifier does
The qualifier is the first thing every homeowner inquiry hits — whether it lands from your website form, Facebook Lead Ad, Google LSA, or a referral SMS. It runs them through a four-question gauntlet before anything reaches a human estimator.
- Scope capture — kitchen remodel, bath remodel, addition, whole-house, roofing, deck, ADU, or full new build. Each path branches differently downstream.
- Timeline filter — “ready to start in 30 days,” “1-3 months,” “3-6 months,” “just exploring.” Anyone past 6 months goes to the long-nurture sequence.
- Budget signal — three bands per scope (e.g., bath $15-35k / $35-75k / $75k+). Homeowners self-select; nobody is hand-held.
- ZIP gating — instantly cross-checks against your service area polygon. Out-of-area leads get a polite “we don’t serve your ZIP” reply with three referral GCs.
- Permit + HOA flag — surfaces whether the project is in a historic district, HOA, or requires structural permits — so your estimator walks in prepared.
How it works under the hood
When a form submission, inbound SMS, or Facebook lead hits GHL, a workflow kicks off:
- Trigger — Contact Created with tag
inbound-leador Form Submitted (any intake form). - Conditional split — If
source = Facebook, route through the SMS-first conversation tree. Ifsource = website, route through the chat widget already in progress. - Question loop — Four conditional SMS/chat questions, each waiting up to 4 hours for a reply before falling back to a follow-up nudge.
- Scoring — Each answer assigns a score (0-25). A qualified lead is 70+. Anything 40-69 goes to a long-nurture drip. Under 40 gets a polite decline with referrals.
- Handoff — Qualified leads create a Pipeline Opportunity tagged with scope/budget/timeline and notify the assigned estimator via SMS + email + GHL app push.
Bath remodel inquiry — manual intake vs the qualifier
Homeowner fills web form Saturday 9pm → email sits until Monday → office manager calls Tuesday → plays phone tag for 2 days → finally learns it's a $5k budget for a $40k job
Form fills Saturday 9pm → SMS qualifier runs in 30s → asks scope/timeline/budget/ZIP → marks 'under budget' → sends polite decline + 3 referral GCs → your estimator never sees it
What it’s NOT
- Not a sales chatbot. It doesn’t try to “close” anyone. It asks four questions and routes.
- Not a credit check or financing pre-approval. Financing is a separate workflow that hands off to Hearth or Acorn.
- Not a replacement for the estimator’s site visit. Square footage, structural condition, scope creep — those still require boots on the ground.
- Not infinitely customizable inside the snapshot. You get four questions and three branches per scope out of the box. Heavier customization is a paid scope.
Why four questions, not twelve
Every additional question drops completion rates by roughly 15-20%. We tested twelve-question intakes for two years; completion dropped from ~78% to ~31%. Four questions captures the four signals that actually predict “real job vs tire-kicker”: scope, timeline, budget band, ZIP. Everything else can wait for the estimator’s call.
The qualifier writes every answer to the contact record as a custom field, so when your estimator opens the contact in GHL they see scope/timeline/budget/ZIP/permit-flag at a glance — no scrolling through SMS history.