In a nutshell here are the main differences between the Call Screen, LightBox, and Smart Form

Call Screen

The Call Screen is an admin only tool. Your customers can’t access it and it allows for flexibility intended only for internal use. Some things you can do in the call screen that neither the LightBox nor the Smart Form can do.

1. Look up past customers / bids. As you type into the Call Screen, ResponsiBid starts looking for your customers so that you can either autofill out the form with what you already have on file and continue giving a bid, or the ability to jump to the customer’s profile so that you can begin scheduling.
2. Allow for Anonymous bids. Only the Call Screen will allow you to bypass your required fields so that you can jump right into a bid before collecting other information that you would normally require upfront. You can, of course, add all the other data later on. The bid will still be stored for future editing.
3. Start a bid to be finished for later. You can get a person’s address, services interested in, and a bunch of other information, and then schedule the specification stuff for an employee to go around and count later on. ResponsiBid even offers you a special follow-up option to make sure that you follow-up with things like confirmation emails if you want to. The onsite employee can just pick up where the phone call left off!
4. Access to custom items. ResponsiBid allows the administrator to use a special module only to be used by people who know how to intricately bid things that ResponsiBid doesn’t have pre-built modules for. You can access custom items directly in  the customer profile, but also right in the Call Screen. Anything you ever create here will pre-populate if you pick it later on. You will have to fine-tune the pricing later, but this is a super powerful feature in ResponsiBid.
5. Commercial quote overrides. We firmly believe that ResponsiBid should not be automating the intricacies of commercial quotes that have so many variables. So if you start running a commercial bid through the Call Screen, you’ll notice where the Smart Form and LightBox stop asking questions, the Call Screen will ask how or if you want to begin the override process. You can directly input prices, or you can start with collecting the regular specifications to adjust later.

You can see that the Call Screen is the most flexible and preferred tool for working within your company. We recommend that office managers keep this page open at all times and begin every call on this page.

The Smart Form

The Smart Form is the static version of collecting a bid. The smart form is one of the items you will be able to install on your website, and therefore it does several things:

1. Required fields are required. ResponsiBid will not give any bids out through the Smart Form without getting all of the required information.
2. Any bid not completed will not be submitted for later. The Smart Form is smart, but it submits just like any other form from your website. Any information entered in, will only make it to you if it is properly submitted.
3. Mobile Friendly– on a mobile site. If your website is mobile friendly, ResponsiBid will be too. If your site is set to a minimum width, ResponsiBid will work off of those parameters. Since the admin section of ResponsiBid is mobile friendly, you can see how it will act there, but remember that no matter where you install ResponsiBid even if it’s mobile friendly, the Smart Form needs to have a certain amount of length, so it requires a dedicated space. Keep that in mind as you install it. The Smart Form works best on a page dedicated to giving “Instant Quotes”.

You can test this inside of ResponsiBid, but the main purpose of the Smart Form is to install on your “Instant Bid” Page.

The LightBox (Premium Users)

The LightBox is a non-intrusive variation of the Smart Form that can be installed on any page of your website while only taking up the space of a button. The LightBox uses the same techniques for the most part as the Smart Form, but it does it in a different way.

1. The lightbox button takes over the page after being clicked. When a visitor of your website clicks the button to get a bid, the page doesn’t load a new page, it just darkens the screen and then pops open a bright rectangle to begin the step-by-step, and frame-by-frame interview process like the Smart Form.
2. Less intimidating… Some say. Because the “next button” keeps the process going, the user doesn’t feel like they have a lot to do.
3. You can get the contact information at the end. If you go to: Settings > Form Builder you can set it up top ask for the name and address and any other information you want to ask for at the very end. This allows the user to get more committed with counting up specs and telling you about the information of the job before you ask for their personal information.

This can be tested in the ResponsiBid admin area like the Smart Form, but the best use of the LightBox is to put it in the sidebar of your website on every page or as a main attraction in the top call-to-action button on each page.