Legal and accounting
Party names come ahead of the story, so a conflict check becomes possible. Legal aid eligibility is written down as a question, rather than settled on the phone.
Qualifying calls
The questions you would ask yourself, asked in the right order, with the answers written down in black and white.
7 days, 20 answered calls, no card
The task it takes over
A voicemail says call me back. A qualified request says who called, about what, where, when, and what is still missing before anyone can act. That gap is worth a two-day round trip, and sometimes the job.
Qualifying means asking the questions of a trade in the order they are useful. A law firm needs the names of the parties ahead of the story, to check for a conflict. A veterinary clinic needs to know which animal is being discussed and who keeps it. A roofer needs the address, the type of roof and how to get up there. Those questions are not interchangeable, which is why they come from a configuration.
Qualifying stops where professional opinion begins. The receptionist does not decide whether a file qualifies for legal aid, gives no diagnosis, and quotes no firm price on work it has not seen. Those limits come from the guardrails of a trade preset, not from cautious writing.
Step by step
- Recognise
Who is speaking, and about whom
Whoever calls is not necessarily the subject: a tenant calls about a unit, a child about a parent, a manager about a building. Requester, subject and decision authority are kept apart rather than merged.
- Ask
The questionnaire of a trade
Questions adapt to what has already been said: known facts are not asked twice. What is missing gets asked once, clearly, with a reason when that helps somebody answer.
- Answer
Whatever can be answered is
Everyday questions — hours, service area, what a business does and what it declines — get answered from content you approved, carrying its source. Anything else is written down for you.
- File
The request takes on a state
A request is created with its fields filled, attached to the right file, and placed in a fitting state: to handle, waiting on a document, or urgent under a rule.
Part of your base, in all eight industries
The adaptive questionnaire, attaching to the right file, answering from approved content and creating the request are base capabilities. They arrive already tuned for an industry and a role.
What gets added on purpose: indexing internal documents so answers come from your own versions, and assembling your own handling rules once qualification is done.
What this changes for your business
Veterinary
The animal, its keeper and the clinic following it are identified before anything gets scheduled. An animal emergency is routed by practice rules, with no clinical opinion.
Real estate
A request is attached to the right building, the right unit and the right person. A maintenance problem is not handled like a viewing request.
What it receives
- Trade questions, and the order in which they are useful
- Approved content that answers everyday questions
- Limits: topics a business wants kept for itself
- Whatever is already known about a person or a file
What it produces
- A structured request carrying the fields of an industry
- A link between requester, subject and responsible person
- Answers given during the call, with their source
- What is still missing, named rather than guessed
You write the questions and you set the limits. A question nobody planned is not invented mid-call.
What is metered
Qualifying carries no meter of its own: it belongs to the conversation.
- A qualified call stays one base call, counted once
- A qualified written conversation belongs to a purchased channel
- How many fields get asked changes nothing in the count
- Answers drawn from approved content are included
Indexing internal documents, with their versions and access rules, belongs to a separate add-on and its own meter.
With your software
A status shown is technical qualification. Qualifying a call works with no software connected at all.
- HubSpotTo qualifyWriting a qualified request into an existing customer record needs a per-account installation and verified scopes; short of that, the request lives in Zenvox.HubSpot
- ClioTo qualifyAccess is declared by region, with a separate account per operating region; checking a conflict remains a decision of the firm.Clio
Questions about this feature
Who writes the questions asked during a call?
You do. They come from your configuration and arrive already tuned for your industry and your role. A question nobody planned is not invented mid-call.
Is the caller the subject of the request?
No. A tenant calls about a unit, a child about a parent, a manager about a building: requester, subject and decision authority are kept apart rather than merged.
Where does qualifying stop?
Where professional opinion begins. The receptionist does not decide whether a file qualifies for legal aid, gives no diagnosis, and quotes no firm price on work it has not seen. Those limits come from the guardrails of your trade preset.
What does she say when someone asks for a price?
Whatever your price policy allows, and you pick it from three settings: no price, a range you write, or your price list. With no price, she says the sentence set for your sector, such as “it depends on the scope of the work, a visit may be needed”, then carries on qualifying the request.
Can she ask for a photo by text?
Yes, in the Trades and maintenance base. When a photo helps prepare the estimate, such as a room to redo or damage to assess, she asks for it by text, and the photo received attaches to the request. An ongoing exchange by text, back and forth, belongs to the Web and SMS conversations add-on.
Does asking for more fields cost more?
No. Qualifying carries no meter of its own: a qualified call stays one base call, counted once, and how many fields get asked changes nothing in the count.
What if the real answer sits in my internal documents?
Everyday questions get answered from content you approved, carrying its source. Indexing your own internal documents, with their versions and access rules, belongs to a separate add-on and its own meter.
Where to next
What a request becomes, or where answers come from.
Qualifying calls