Losing leads because I can't quote over the phone — anyone else deal with this?

Running a small home services operation here in Texas. Water softeners, guttering, some flower bed work. Just me and a couple guys.

My biggest frustration right now isn't the actual work — it's the phone calls.

Someone calls, asks "how much to install a water softener?" I can't give them a real number without seeing the house. Is there already a loop? What's the distance from the city line to the garage? Is there anything blocking the path? I don't know any of that until I'm standing there.

So I either say "I need to come take a look first" — and half of them just move on. Or I throw out a rough range, they say okay, and then when I get there the job is bigger than I thought and now I'm the bad guy for adjusting the price.

I talked to a few other guys doing similar work and they're all dealing with the same thing. One told me he estimates he loses 30-40% of his inbound calls this way. Not to cheaper competitors — just to whoever gave a number first.

How are you guys handling this?

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