Online Glass Quote Requests

Glass customers find you at night. The window cracked at dinner, and by 10 p.m. they're comparing three glass shops on their phone. The shop that lets them describe the job and send a photo right then is the one that gets the call back in the morning.

The online quote form does exactly that. Customers say what needs glass, give rough sizes and attach photos. The request lands in an inbox on your Flat Glass board. One click matches it to a customer and turns it into a job, with every opening and photo already on it.

Turning it on

In Workflows → Flat Glass Settings, open the Online quote requests tab:

Take quote requests online: on by default.
Let customers attach photos: leave it on. A photo of a broken sash tells you more than three paragraphs.
Ask for the address where the work is: on unless you only work in your own shop.
Thank-you message: shown after they send. The standard one promises a reply within one business day. Change it to what you'll actually do.

Press Save.

Putting the form on your website

The Put the form on your website card on the same tab gives you two ways:

Link: a web address for the form. Copy it into your website's menu, your email signature, your social media profiles, or anywhere a customer might look for you. Open shows you the form.
Code for your website: paste it into a page of your website where the form should appear. The frame grows to fit the form, so there's no scrolling box inside your page. Whoever looks after your website will know what to do with it.

If your company uses business units, Requests for chooses which one the form belongs to. The form then shows that unit's name, phone number and logo, and jobs made from its requests belong to that unit. Make one link per unit if each has its own website.

When online requests are switched off, the form doesn't disappear: it asks visitors to call you instead, with your phone number.

What the customer fills in

The form is called Request a glass quote and works well on a phone. It tells customers rough sizes are fine, because you measure before anything is made. They give:

Their details: a name, and a phone number or an email address (at least one).
Where the job is.
What needs glass: one entry per opening, with What is it? (window, shower door, mirror, tabletop …), How many, Where ("Kitchen window"), a rough width and height in inches, and notes like "foggy between the panes". Up to 20 openings.
A message, such as when they'd like the work done.
Up to 6 photos.

Then Send my request, and they see your thank-you message.

The form has built-in spam protection, and one connection can only send a few requests an hour, so a bot can't fill your inbox.

The inbox

When a request arrives, your team gets a New glass quote request notification. Requests wait in Flat Glass → Quote Requests, which is also the Quote requests tile on the board.

The inbox has three tabs: New, Turned into jobs and Dismissed. Each request shows:

who sent it and when, with their phone, email and address (with a map link);
their message;
the openings, with rough sizes and quantities;
the photos. Click one to see it full size.

Photos are visible only to your signed-in staff.

Turning a request into a job

If it's someone you already know, the request says so: This looks like a customer you already have, matched on the same email address or phone number. Press Create job for and their name.

If it's someone new, press Create job. They're added as a new customer from the details they gave you. (If there was a match and you're sure it's a different person, the button reads Create job as a new customer and asks you to confirm.)

If you know who it really is, such as a tenant writing in about a property you already serve, use Use an existing customer… and search for the right account.

The new job opens on the Flat Glass screen with:

every opening from the request, on rough sizes;
the photos, attached to the job as photos of the openings;
their message, as a note on the job.

From there it's an ordinary glass job. Call them back, price it from the rough sizes and photos, and Book a measure visit. Nothing can be ordered or cut until it's measured, so quoting from a customer's numbers is safe. See From first call to paid: a flat glass job.

Not a job? Spam, a duplicate, someone outside your area: Dismiss it. Dismissed requests stay on the Dismissed tab and can be brought back with Move back to new.

Common mistakes

Promising a reply you can't keep. The thank-you message is a promise. "Within one business day" means somebody checks the inbox every morning. Make it someone's job.

Creating a second account for a regular customer. When the request says it looks like a customer you already have, believe it. Two accounts means two histories, and somebody's invoice ends up on the wrong one.

Quoting a final price from the photos. Photos and rough sizes are for a ballpark and for deciding what to bring to the measure. The real price is the one built on measured sizes.

Dismissing without replying. Dismiss removes it from your list, not from the customer's mind. If it isn't work you want, tell them so, then dismiss it.

Hiding the link. A form only your contact page knows about gets a request a month. Put the link on your home page, your Google listing and the photos you post of finished jobs.