Service request
Also known as: service call, inbound lead, request
An inbound ask from a customer that hasn't yet been scheduled or quoted.
A service request is a piece of inbound customer demand — a phone call, web form submission, email, text — that hasn't been triaged into a scheduled work order yet. Service requests are the top of the funnel for any field service business: they need to be acknowledged, qualified (is this in service area? is this in scope?), routed to the right team, and either converted into a quote or a job, or declined.
In modern FSM platforms, service requests are a first-class object distinct from quotes and work orders. Treating the request itself as a record — with its source, the contact attempt log, the conversion outcome — lets a service business see how many requests came in last week, how fast they were responded to, and what fraction converted to work. Without that record, the business is flying blind on its top-of-funnel.
Related terms
Work order
The structured record of a job to be performed — what's needed, when, where, by whom, and at what price.
Dispatch
Assigning jobs to specific technicians or crews on specific days, with the right skills, parts, and routing in place.
Quote
A proposed price for a job, given to the customer before work starts, that they accept or reject.