The interview behind a service page

Pick one service, not five

Start with the service you most want more of, or the one your estimator is tired of explaining on the phone. Finish that interview before starting another. An owner who opens five finishes none.

Don't book a meeting

Nobody in a service business has an hour for a content workshop. Ride along, or call when they're parked between jobs, and work down the questions.

Ask the question, then stop talking

The first sentence is the summary. The second one — the one that arrives after an awkward pause — is usually the part that belongs on the page.

Write what they said

Not a tidied version. “The pipe breaks on the way up” is a paragraph. “We prioritise quality workmanship” is not, and it is what happens when you smooth their words out.

Ask a second person questions 3, 5 and 7

Process, timeline, and what-goes-wrong are where a business most often finds it does not agree with itself. When the two answers differ, add the second one — both go on the record, with the role each came from.

Ten is not a requirement

Four answered honestly and six left open is a real, useful artifact. Leave a question blank rather than filling it from your own head — an invented answer is worse than a blank, because the blank has a role attached to it.

Question 10 asks what work you turn down and who those callers should ring instead. It is the one owners want off the sheet, because it reads like turning away business.

It is doing the opposite. Someone whose job you cannot do is going to find that out — either on your page in ten seconds, or on the phone with your estimator on a Tuesday afternoon after a site visit. A page that says who it isn't for is also the only part of a service page a competitor can't copy without lying. Keep it. If the honest answer is “we take everything,” the useful version is what you're worst at.

Send the whole thing to whoever writes the page — answers in the business's own words beat a request for “content” every time. Treat the open list as the agenda for one more conversation, not as homework.

And put the two people who answered a question differently in the same room before anybody writes that section. A customer would experience those two answers as opposite, which makes settling it a business decision, not an editing one.

Alderline Garage Doors is invented. The service, the roles, the date and every answer are example material — not a client, a claim, or a recommendation. None of it is hand-written: this interview runs through the same assembler the app uses, so what you see is what the tool produces.

Garage door replacement — the ten sections it produced

1. 01 Opening / above the fold Recorded

   They ask what it costs, every time. The second question is whether we can get it working today, because the car is stuck inside and they have somewhere to be.

2. 02 What this actually is Recorded

   Most people assume the whole system has to go — track, opener, springs. Nine times out of ten the track and the opener stay, and it is the door sections and the springs that get replaced.

3. 03 Process Recorded

   We measure the opening on site and send the quote the same day. Then we order the door and wait on the manufacturer. When it lands we schedule one crew for one day: old door out, new door and springs in, opener re-set, old door hauled away.

4. 04 What we need from you Recorded

   Photos of the opening and the springs help.

5. 05 Timeline Recorded

   The install itself is four to six hours. The wait is the door: two to three weeks for something we stock, six or more for a custom colour or an odd size, and longer again if the opening is out of square and needs framing first.

6. 06 Cost factors Recorded

   Insulation, window sections, steel gauge, custom colour, and the width of the opening. Replacing the opener at the same time moves it again, and an opening that needs new framing moves it most.

7. 07 What can go wrong Two answers

   Estimator A door ordered to the wrong size is on us. We eat the reorder and the customer waits, but they do not pay twice.

   Crew lead Depends who measured it. If the customer gave us the numbers over the phone, that reorder gets billed.

8. 08 How to prepare Recorded

   Move both cars out the night before, clear a path from the driveway to the door, and take anything breakable off the shelves along that wall — the whole opening shakes when the old door comes down.

9. 09 Who shows up Recorded

   Two installers in a white truck.

10. 10 Fit / who this isn't for Open

    Nobody answered “What job do you turn down, and who should they call instead?” yet.

And the open list it produced

What can go wrong — Two answers

Two people answered this differently. Settle it before it goes on a page. Ask: Both of them, in the same conversation.

Fit / who this isn't for — Open

Nobody has answered this one yet. Ask: The owner. Then ask: “What kind of company do those callers usually need instead?”

Question 7 is the one worth the whole exercise. The estimator and the crew lead answered it differently, so nobody can write that paragraph yet. That is a finding about the business, not a failure of the interview — and it is a conversation the owner needed to have whether or not a page ever gets written.

1. This does not write your service page. It arranges what people in the business said.
2. This does not promise traffic, rankings, inquiries, sales, or revenue.
3. This does not know whether an answer is true, current, or agreed across the business.
4. This is not keyword research and does not say what people search for.
5. A blank section means nobody has answered it yet. The tool never reads silence as a finding.
6. Two recorded answers mean two people said different things. Which one is right is your call.
7. Nothing here is scored, graded, ranked, or measured.

Related field notes

• What a service page must explain
• Who writes the website copy
• The website content checklist, before design