Junk removal

The quote workflow

How a junk removal job moves through HaulHQ: the customer describes the work, you price it, and a person closes it -- or they book themselves, if you have priced your load sizes.

This is part of the Junk removal workflow

Renting dumpsters? Start with the booking workflow.

Junk removal is quoted, not booked, because the price depends on a pile nobody has seen yet. The flow is built around getting to a number fast and then getting a person in front of the customer.

The path

1A customer checks their zip on your site and describes the job.
2They pick a load size and see an instant price range, or ask for a written estimate.
3HaulHQ captures a lead with their photos and details.
4You send an estimate, or the price they already saw stands.
5You close it -- a call or a text, fast. This is where junk jobs are won. Customers who are ready can also book the pickup themselves from the same form.
6The job is scheduled, hauled, photographed and completed.

The human close is the strength, not the fallback

It is easy to read "a person closes it" as the thing dumpster rental has outgrown. It is the opposite. Answering a lead fast is how junk jobs are won, and it is what HaulHQ is built to make possible -- the lead lands with photos, a price and contact details already attached. Self-booking is a convenience for customers who are already decided; it does not replace the call.

Both closing paths, and which one to set up

The two paths are not alternatives you pick between. Both are live on the same form at the same time. What you control is how much of the price a visitor sees before they hand over their details -- see Your quote form.

Path	What the customer does	What you get
You close it (most jobs)	Describes the job, sees a price range, leaves their details	A lead with photos, a price and a phone number. You call or text.
They self-book	Picks a load size, then picks a date and time window	A lead and a scheduled job, created together. The lead is recorded as converted, so nothing is lost.

Do not chase self-bookings at the cost of leads

The number to watch is leads, not online bookings. HaulHQ measured this on its own tenants: the gated multi-step form produced 13 leads where the simpler one produced 45. Self-booking suits an operator whose load sizes are priced tightly enough to quote sight-unseen. If that is not you, showing a price range and getting the call is the stronger setup.

What to set up

Load tiers -- the sizes customers pick from, and the price range for each.
Price book -- per-item prices the chatbot quotes from. See Range pricing for how the numbers are used. Written estimates are built line by line.
Your quote form -- the fields, the appearance, and whether the price is shown before contact details.
Book online and save -- an optional fixed amount off a load size for customers who book online, set under Settings > Money > Discounts. The price reveal shows the list range struck through and the discounted range. Codes a customer types are a dumpster thing -- see Discount codes.
Deposits -- whether a booking is offered a deposit, on which sizes, and where the customer is asked.
A quote page on your website carrying haulhq_form, plus haulhq_zip_cta wherever you want the flow to start.

When a job does not go to plan

Two things happen to real jobs that the normal path does not cover: the customer goes quiet before the date, and you do the work and forget to move the job along until the evening. Both have a proper action in the job's More menu, on the desktop job page and on your phone.

Action	When	What happens
Put On Hold	A booked, scheduled or missed job whose date is no longer real -- the customer is deciding, or the day came and went.	The job keeps everything but its date. It leaves the calendar, capacity and the reminder texts, and shows as On hold on the jobs list (there is an On hold filter) with how long it has waited. No message goes to the customer. When they are ready, Set a date puts it back on the calendar and sends the normal rescheduled text.
Close After Trip	A job you did on the day and did not step through on the phone -- it is still booked or scheduled and the date is today or earlier.	It goes straight to completed with a Finished at time you set (defaults to now), and the "we're on our way" text is not sent, because the customer has already seen you. Everything that normally follows completion still happens: the review request, the invoice when you take payment, and Collect Payment opens for you at once. The job's start time is left blank rather than invented.

Neither applies to a dumpster rental

A rental's dates belong to its booking, and a rental completes at the dump after the pickup. Holding one trip would leave the booking wrong, so both actions are junk-removal only. To move a rental, extend or reschedule it from its work order.

The internal note

Every lead and every job has an internal note: one free-text field, Add note when it is empty, Edit when it is not. It is for the things you would write on the back of the ticket -- gate code is 4411, call before 8 or he will not answer, watch the dog. Owners, dispatchers and the assigned driver can read and change it; the driver sees it on their job screen just above the access notes.

The customer never sees it

The internal note is not on the estimate, the confirmation, the invoice, the receipt or any text or email. Notes to Customer on an estimate is the field that reaches them. Keep the two straight: one is for them, one is for you.

When a lead becomes a job, whichever way it happens -- you book it, the customer approves an estimate, the chatbot books it, or they book from your page -- the note is copied to the job so it is there on the day. Changing it on the job does not change it on the lead.

Where the lead came from

Every lead records which ad or page produced it, with nothing to set up. A Google Ads click carries its click id (the gclid); a tagged link carries its UTM values; and the page the visitor came from is kept too. On the lead -- and on the job it becomes -- the Source line reads in plain words: Google Ads, Facebook, Direct, with the keyword or campaign when there is one.

Nothing to configure. It works whenever Google Ads auto-tagging is on, which is its default.
The new-lead email carries an Ad Source line when there is one.
For the whole picture, export Leads from Settings > Platform > Data: one column per value -- click id, source, medium, campaign, keyword -- plus the settled job value and when it converted, so you can see which ads paid.

Texting the customer

The lead, the job and the customer record each carry a Messages thread. Texts you send from it go out on your business number, not anyone's personal phone, and the customer's replies land back in the same thread. Your drivers get the same thread, in the truck: it is on the job in the driver app, so a driver's "10 minutes out" comes from your number too, and the customer's reply is pushed to the driver and crew assigned to that job and nobody else.

Common mistakes

"Junk removal cannot take a booking, so I need the booking shortcode."

It can. [haulhq_form] takes a booking as well as a lead -- see Your quote form. [haulhq_booking] is for containers, not junk, and adding it will not help. See the two workflows.

"A human close means HaulHQ is behind on automation."

It means junk jobs are won on contact, and the product is built to get you there fast. The form exists to produce a lead you can call, which is why contact details are captured early rather than at the end of a checkout.

"My load tiers show Call for pricing and I did not ask for that."

A tier with a blank price range renders as "Call for pricing". Fill in the minimum and maximum -- see Range pricing.