What is qualified appointment?

Why it matters for a contractor.

It is the difference between a name to chase and a job to quote. When it is the billable unit, the cost of everyone who was never going to buy sits with the vendor.

The word doing the work is defined. Qualified means nothing until someone writes down the criteria: the project type, the ownership of the property, whether both decision makers will be present, the budget floor if there is one, and the boundary of the service area. Without that written down, qualified means whatever the vendor needs it to mean at invoice time.

The homeowner choosing their own slot matters more than it sounds. An appointment a setter picked on someone's behalf shows at a materially lower rate than one the homeowner selected from a calendar, because the second one is a commitment and the first is a suggestion. Any definition of qualified that skips this is measuring the wrong thing.

Service area is the quiet failure mode. An appointment forty minutes past where your crews go is a truck roll you eat and a slot you cannot resell, and it counts as a win on the vendor's dashboard. The boundary belongs in the definition, in writing, before the first campaign runs.

What to ask a vendor about it.

• Write down your definition of qualified. What are the exact criteria?
• Who decides whether an appointment met them, and what happens when we disagree?
• Did the homeowner pick the time themselves, or did a setter pick it for them?
• What is the replacement policy for an appointment outside my service area?