The enquiry that tells you nothing
"Hi, we are looking for a nanny in the Cheltenham area. Could you give me a call?"
That is a real enquiry in the sense that a real family sent it. It is not a usable one. Before a consultant can do anything at all, somebody has to ring, catch her between meetings, and ask the eight questions the form should have asked: how many children, how old, how many hours, which days, live-in or live-out, where exactly, when do they need to start, and what budget are they working to.
Multiply that by every enquiry in a week and you have lost most of a day to work a form does for free.
What the missing detail costs
A call before any work can start. Two attempts, voicemail, a call back at an awkward time. Days go past and the family has enquired with two other agencies in the meantime.
Slow matching. You cannot look at your candidates until you know the shape of the role. The agency that asked the right questions on the form is already sending profiles.
Enquiries you should have declined. Areas you do not cover, hours you cannot fill, budgets that will not work. Every one of those costs a consultant a conversation.
Self-selection you never see. A family who wants a live-in nanny and cannot tell from your site whether you place them will often just leave rather than ask.
The questions a family form should ask
Take the first call a consultant makes and turn it into fields.
- Children: how many, and the age of each. Ages, not "two young children", because a two-year-old and a nine-year-old are different roles.
- Role type: live-in, live-out, full-time, part-time, after-school, temporary, maternity, au pair. Ask this early, because it drives what else you show.
- Hours and days: which days, roughly what times, whether there is flexibility, whether overnights or weekends are involved.
- Location: town or postcode area, not just county. It decides whether you can help at all.
- Start date: a date or a month, plus how firm it is.
- Budget: a band rather than a box, expressed the way you charge and the way nannies are paid in your market. Bands get answered; open boxes get skipped.
- The household: pets, other help, whether a parent works from home, driving required, languages wanted, any additional needs. One optional textarea with a prompt list works better than eight tick boxes.
- Contact and preference: name, email, phone, and how and when they would like to be contacted.
Why families answer a long form here
The standard advice is that shorter forms convert better. It is largely true, and it is wrong in this context, for a reason worth understanding.
A form is abandoned when the questions feel irrelevant or intrusive relative to what the visitor is asking for. A family asking a stranger to find someone to look after their children expects to be asked about their children. Every question above is obviously connected to the thing they want. Asking them signals that you know the job.
What families abandon is a form that asks how they heard about you before it asks anything about the role, or one that demands a phone number to see a fee, or one that presents twenty-five fields in a single ungrouped column.
How to keep it feeling short
Conditional sections. Ask role type second, then show only what applies. A family wanting after-school cover never sees live-in questions.
Two steps, not twenty fields. Step one is the role. Step two is contact details. Show a progress indicator. People finish what they can see the end of.
Sensible input types. A date picker for the start date, a slider or bands for budget, plus and minus buttons for children, real keyboards on mobile.
Group and label in plain words. "About your children", "The role", "About you". Not "Requirement parameters".
Ask nothing you will not use. If nobody reads the "how did you hear about us" answer, delete the field and read your analytics instead.
What not to put on a public form
Do not ask for documents, identity details, or anything about a child's health or additional needs beyond what a family volunteers in the free text. Do not collect a child's full name or date of birth at enquiry stage; ages are enough. Take the detailed and sensitive material at registration, through whatever route your agency uses for it, and let the form say so in a line. That line reassures more than it costs.
After submission
Confirm on screen and by email, both saying what happens next and by when. State a reply window on the form page and meet it. Land the submission in your CRM as a record, assigned to a consultant, not in a shared inbox where it competes with fourteen CVs.
Then keep the candidate registration entirely separate, with its own form, its own upload and its own reply routine, so neither queue slows the other.
Where this sits
A family enquiry form that captures children, hours, location, start date and budget, landing as a record rather than an email, is a core part of a nanny and au pair agency website, and the same approach to enquiry detail runs through our other childcare and family websites. What each package includes is on pricing. Ask on the form what you would ask on the phone, and the phone call becomes the shortlist rather than the interview.