What questions should I ask a roofing appointment setting company on a strategy call?

These are the seven items a roofing contractor should ask every vendor to put in writing. Our answers are below, under the exact labels buyers use, so you can put the same seven to anyone else you shortlist.

Pricing depends on your market size and inspection volume. We cover it on a 30 minute call. Once your scope is set, divide what you pay by the inspections that showed to get your cost per shown inspection.

The seven checkpoint Lead Engine Appointment Standard, agreed with you before the first dial: ownership confirmed, address inside your approved service area, roof age and reason for the quote documented, decision maker confirmed present, a specific window agreed and read back, a calendar invite with a unique reference ID, and a final internal QA review.

One roofing contractor per market. Every roof inspection booked inside your approved zip codes goes onto your calendar and nobody else's.

Shown means the decision maker was present, your inspector arrived, and the roof was actually looked at. We publish floors rather than a percentage: at least 6 shown residential or 4 shown commercial roof inspections a week.

Any appointment that misses a checkpoint of the Lead Engine Appointment Standard is replaced at no charge, and we keep calling at no additional cost.

One roofing contractor per market. The market is the specific zip codes approved at kickoff plus the agreed drive radius, named in the agreement, so the boundary is written down rather than described as a metro name.

Month to month, with no long term contract.

Because everything downstream depends on it. The caller is the product.

A homeowner who hears a confident voice that can talk about a hail run last spring behaves differently from one who hears a script being read at speed.

Most of them. Commercial is a different animal and a vendor who answers the same way for both has not done it.

For residential, you want to know how ownership is confirmed and how the window gets read back to the homeowner.

For commercial, ask who they consider the decision maker on a TPO or flat roof, and how they handle a property manager who controls twelve buildings but signs for none of them.

Ask how a walk with a facilities contact turns into a real quote conversation. Ask whether the caller can get past a gatekeeper without burning your company name.

Ask what happens when the building owner wants a bid for budget purposes with no intention of buying this year. A serious setter will tell you how that gets documented rather than pretending it never happens.

Run down this list on the call. You are listening for specificity, not enthusiasm.

A good answer names a thing that exists: a team, a document, a number, a notice period. A weak answer describes a philosophy.

Watch what happens when you ask the same question twice in different words. Real operating answers stay the same. Improvised ones drift.

Take notes in the vendor's own words rather than your summary. Two weeks later, comparing three sets of exact phrases is far easier than comparing three impressions.

One more thing to listen for: whether they ask you harder questions than you asked them. Someone who wants your estimator capacity and your zip profitability before quoting is scoping the job properly.

Do not argue with the number. Make the vendor show the arithmetic behind it.

If you cannot say which zip codes you profit in, wait a week and work that out first.

The call goes badly when nobody can answer basic questions about service radius, roof type mix or how many inspections a week your crews can actually run.

If you are between crews or mid season with no bench, booking more inspections makes your week worse.