The absolute hell of chasing clients for basic project details.

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I always send a templated list of questions that are simple to answer and give me all the info needed to quote and begin the process

Since you do web work why not just deploy a customer portal and let them input their info into that? I’m sure you could find lots of uses for it to help keep things like this organized. You could also tie in email drips to ensure they fill everything out. Very solvable problem.

the thing that finally reduced this for me was making "basic project details" part of the start date, not part of the project. I dont start the clock until the intake is complete. not "mostly complete", not "they sent it in 6 emails", complete enough that I can actually do the work. the wording I use is basically: "your project slot is reserved after payment, but work begins once the kickoff form and requested files are in. delays in those items shift the delivery date." clients understand delays when it affects their place in line. also, stop asking open-ended questions like "send over what you have" or "let me know your goals." people freeze or dump garbage on you. ask for the exact thing, with an example right under it. "upload your logo file, ideally svg or png. if you dont have one, type 'no logo yet'." sounds dumb, but it removes a surprising amount of back and forth. one more thing: don't chase in 5 different places. pick one place where answers live. email is fine if thats all you have, but then every request needs to be in one thread with a clear due date. if they text you a half-answer, copy it back into the main thread and say "putting this here so I dont lose it." the annoying part is that clients usually arent trying to be difficult. they just dont know what "basic details" means to you until you make it painfully specific.

i work for agentui.... this is a common use case we see in our platform

Yes — the simplest fix is usually to stop treating discovery as an email conversation. If clients are sending a wall of text and you’re spending days extracting the missing pieces, the bottleneck usually isn’t follow-up discipline — it’s that the intake step is unstructured. I’d rebuild it like this: one required intake form for every new project conditional questions so they only see what applies required fields for the assets you always need (domain, hosting access, logo files, copy status, deadlines, decision-maker, etc.) a clear status after submission: complete / missing items / ready to quote one place to keep the answers so you’re not re-reading old emails later The big mistake with standard forms is making them too generic. A generic form collects contact info; a good workflow form collects decision-ready info. If you need progress updates afterward, I wouldn’t try to force that into the same intake form. I’d use: intake form to qualify and gather requirements internal checklist/status tracker for production a missing-items request only when something is incomplete That way you’re not manually chasing every single project from scratch. Also, if you keep getting ghosted before quoting, add a “minimum info required before estimate” rule and stick to it. Even a simple message like “Happy to quote this once these 6 items are completed” will save you a lot of unpaid back-and-forth. For service businesses, the win usually comes from turning intake into a process instead of a conversation.