How to create intake forms in Google Forms (Tips & more)

Just as in life, first impressions matter in business. 

That is why a good intake form is essential. A good intake form ensures your business's initial success when leaving a good impression and collecting customer information. While it may seem easy to craft an intake form, making a professionally designed intake form requires experience.

In this article, you will learn what an intake form is, when you need an intake form, a Google Forms tutorial on how to create an intake form, a more advanced way to create the best intake form possible with forms.app, the advantages of using intake forms, and five tips to make sure that you create the best intake form possible.

First things first: What is an intake form

An intake form collects all the information that an organization, company, or business needs to direct a client through an individual business process.

It is the most common form to collect basic information. This basic information usually includes contact information, relevant information about the client or your business, and information about your products or services.

Intake forms are also a great way to attract potential clients for business relationships. If you design an intake form that is professional enough, you can impress potential customers or clients and save time in the process.

Use cases of intake forms

All businesses usually need some type of intake form, as it is the best way to collect and share information. Most companies nowadays rely on online intake forms, which clients fill out the form from their phones or computers, but more severe cases, such as medical intake forms, are still printed out. 

Here are several instances in which an intake form is needed:

➡️A school club looking to advertise themselves and collect new members.

➡️A company that is working with a client on a personalized project with a client intake form.

➡️A small business looking to make a lasting impression on potential customers.

➡️A big business that wants to collect as much information about a new product or a service.

➡️A recruiter that is looking for a good fit for a new position.

➡️A bank that needs to collect information about their clients when they open up a new account.

➡️A hospital that needs to collect vital information about a patient or a donor.

➡️An animal shelter that is adopting rescued animals to animal lovers.

How do I create an intake form in Google Forms?

Google Forms is a widely used tool for creating an intake form. It is an easy-to-understand form builder that will ensure you understand the process. You can go to Google Forms and start making an intake form for your business.

1. Start from scratch or use a template

Choose a beginning option

To start creating your form, you can either start from scratch with a blank form or use one of the free templates that Google Forms offers. Although there are no free templates dedicated to intake forms, you can customize one of the templates to create a good intake form.

2. Add your questions and answers

Add your questions to the intake form

After choosing which option you would like to use as your base, you can add your questions and answer options to the form. You can add your questions by clicking on the plus sign within a circle on the right side of the form and customize them by clicking on any question and making your changes. 

You can make all of the customizations through the question itself after you click on it. To change the question type, click on a question and click on “Multiple choice.” You can then choose any question type you want from the dropdown menu.

💡Altering the question type can help you get as much information as possible. Try it!

3. Customize your intake form

To customize your Google Form and edit the visuals, use the palette icon at the top right corner of the page. The “Theme” menu allows you to customize the fonts, font sizes, header images, and survey colors. 

Customize your intake form

You can also make further customizations, such as adding a photo or a video to a question, by clicking on the question and selecting your choice of customization on the right side of the question.

4. Change the settings of your form

Customize the settings

While it is often overlooked, we recommend checking out the “Settings” page before completing your form. The “Settings” page allows you to make specific and vital changes, such as how to collect and protect your responses, how to present your form, and the default settings of your application form. While these settings are not visual, it is vital to check them out to unlock the form’s true potential.

5. Link your form’s responses

Link your intake form to Sheets

After you click “Send”, you can link your form to Google Sheets by going to the “Responses” page and clicking “Link to Sheets.” This is an essential feature if you create intake forms for large organizations. You can also select detailed settings about how to collect responses by clicking on the three vertical dots next to “Link to sheets.”

Try more advanced features: forms.app

If you would like to try a more advanced version that offers better customization options for free to create an intake form, try forms.app. forms.app offers more in-depth features to ensure that you make the best intake form possible and gather the most information from your customers.

1. Choose a template, start from scratch, or use forms.app AI

Choose a beginning option

To begin creating your intake form with forms.app, you can choose one of our free intake form templates, start with a blank form, or use forms.app AI. Our breakthrough AI helps you create a customized form with just a sentence and lets you have the best experience possible.

2. Edit the questions or add your own

Edit the questions

After choosing which base you would like to start with, you can add questions or edit existing intake form questions from our templates. Simply click on any question you would like to edit and change anything from the question's title, the answers, and the description.

💡You can also use rewrite with forms.app AI to edit questions. Click the purple icon next to any question title to rephrase or rewrite your question using forms.app AI.

3. Use various fields

If you would like to personalize the form for your customers, we recommend using dedicated form fields, such as the “Legal & Consent” field, which allows you to add terms and conditions and signature fields to your forms, an especially useful feature for companies that work with important clients. You can access them by scrolling down to “Legal & Consent” within the “Fields” tab.

Add a Legal & Consent field

💡You can also drag and drop the fields to the form rather than clicking on them. The drag-and-drop feature lets you put the field anywhere on the form.

4. Customize the form design

Once you are done with the general creation process, you can get to editing your form’s overall design. To customize the visuals, go to the “Design” tab within the “Build” section and make any visual changes to the form's theme. You can also make further changes, such as font colors, border radiuses, and other settings, from the “Customize” section of the “Design” tab.

Customize your intake form

💡The design tab also allows you to have animated themes for your survey. Go to the end of the design tab to choose an animated theme.

5. Preview, connect & share

After you are done creating, you can preview your form by clicking the eye icon at the top right side of the page. This feature allows you to examine your form from a customer’s perspective. You can also connect your survey to several different databases using the “Connect” section. The connect section allows you to pair the results of your form with several types of databases.

Test your form

In the end, you can share your form with the world through the “Share” tab. However, the “Share” tab is not just for sharing; it also allows you to customize your survey's URL or embedding. The embedding feature lets the survey pop up wherever you want on your website. You can choose between full-page, side tab, slider, and more. 

6. Analyze your results

forms.app also helps collect and analyze the results of your intake form. As collecting data is the main goal of intake forms, after you share your form, you can see the results and responses, how many people have filled it out, and what they had to say about it by going to the “Results” section.

Test your form

Furthermore, you can also see the statistics and analytics of your form by going to the “Statistics” tab to see the number of responses, submission percentage, views, and much more. You can also see which devices or platforms people have used to fill out your form or where they are from. 

Pros of using intake forms

Since you have learned how to create an intake form, it is now time to learn “Why?” As creating an intake form is quite simple, it often gets overlooked, but if you give time and effort to create the best intake form possible, you may see that there are many pros of using intake forms:

➕Improved client experience: Intake forms allow clients to give out information they want, and withhold the ones they do not, therefore giving your client more respect.

➕Security: By adding an agreement field to your intake form, you eliminate the risk of dealing with a malicious customer who wants to sue you because of the information you have about them.

➕More customization options: By creating a solid intake form template, you can make customizations according to specific clients. This improves customer satisfaction and shows your professionalism.

5 Tips for a better intake form

There are a few things to know to create the best intake form possible for your business. These tips will ensure that you allow the best experience for your customers while increasing the efficiency of your business and your workforce. 

Pro tips for intake forms

1. Keep it simple: The main goal of an intake form is to collect as much information as possible. Remember this goal to avoid confusing your customers.

2. Make the form personalized: If you create a form template that can be applied to many different scenarios, you can easily customize it for different clients. This provides a more personalized experience for your customers.

3. Link your form to databases: One of the best ways to decrease workload is by linking your form and its responses to databases. You can see how you can link your form using forms.app through the guide above.

4. Send an automated response email: Send an automated response email to anyone who fills out the intake form to showcase your professionalism.

5. Add your contact information: For customers with additional contributions or questions, add your company’s or organization’s contact information.

Key points to take away

In summary, an intake form is a great way of communication that ensures your business's initial success when leaving a good impression and collecting customer information. Intake forms are also a great way to attract potential clients for business relationships by adding your company’s own contact information and advertising it through various channels.

In this article, you have learned what an intake form is, when you need an intake form, how to create an intake form using Google Forms, a more advanced way to create the best intake form possible with forms.app, and the advantages of using intake forms. You have also seen five tips to make sure that you create the best intake form possible. Try out both channels and create the best intake form for your business.