A website chatbot for building and remodelling contractors

A building contractor's enquiry inbox is full of projects that will never happen and a few that will. The difference is usually visible in four answers, and none of them needs you to be on the phone to collect. An Allinaa assistant on your website asks for them, answers the questions people ask before they are willing to meet anyone, and hands over the serious ones with the detail already attached.

What kind of project is this, really

"Can you do an extension?" covers a conservatory and a two-storey rear extension with steel. The assistant's first job is to find out which, and it does it one question at a time rather than with a form:

1. What the work is, in the visitor's own words
2. Whether drawings or planning permission already exist
3. Whether they are living in the property during the work
4. Roughly when they want it to start, and whether they have a budget range in mind

The budget question is the one most contractors are shy about and the one that saves the most wasted mornings. Ask it the way you would ask it in person - as a range, with a reason - and write that wording into your knowledge so it comes out the same way every time.

Why it must not price anything

Nobody can price building work from a chat window, and a figure that turns out wrong by a factor of two is worse for you than no figure. Configure the assistant so that it does not give a price, a cost per square metre or a duration for work it has not seen, and write the sentence it uses instead. If your published material contains a figure you stand behind, with its source and year, the assistant can quote that material, because it quotes only what is written.

The questions that win the meeting

These have fixed answers, and a visitor comparing three contractors at the weekend will choose the one whose site answers them:

• "Do you handle the planning application and the building control sign-off?"
• "Do you use your own trades or subcontract?"
• "What insurance do you carry?"
• "How do payments work - deposit, stages, retention?"
• "What happens when something unexpected turns up behind a wall?"
• "How long are you booking ahead?"

Write each one into the knowledge in your own words, including the uncomfortable ones. The variations clause and the payment schedule are exactly what a careful client is looking for, and stating them plainly reads as confidence rather than as a warning.

Photos and drawings, before the first visit

On Premium a visitor can send photos and documents - the room as it is, the garden elevation, a PDF of an architect's drawings - and they are checked for viruses and stored privately against the enquiry. For building work that changes the first meeting completely: you arrive knowing whether the drawings are buildable and whether the access will take a skip. See files customers send.

What happens to the enquiry

The assistant offers the inquiry form once it has what it needs. The visitor confirms their own contact details and agrees to be contacted, you get an e-mail, and the enquiry waits in your inbox with the four answers attached, a status, private notes and CSV export. A visitor can ask for a person at any point and the conversation is handed over with the whole thread visible. See quote requests and handing a chat to a person.

Clients with a job running

Somebody whose extension is half built will use the same chat box to ask when the plasterer is coming. The assistant has no access to your programme, your project software or your invoices, and it should say so and offer a person rather than invent a date - a wrong date on a live job costs more goodwill than the enquiry was worth. Decide that wording before you publish, along with the rest of the boundaries, and then test it by asking for a price and a start date on purpose. See the launch checklist.