What the customer is actually asking
They are rarely asking for a binding quote. They are asking whether you are in their universe — whether this is a two-hundred-dollar problem or a two-thousand-dollar one — because they have no idea, and every business so far has refused to tell them.
That is why a range works where a refusal does not. It answers the real question without answering the one you cannot answer yet.
A range, plus the things that move it
Name a range, then name the two or three specifics that decide where inside it the job lands: square footage, access, the age of the equipment, how long it has been left. That gives the customer a number to think with and tells them why you cannot be exact, in terms they accept.
It also protects you. A customer who was told up front that a crawlspace or a second storey moves the price is not surprised when it does — and surprise is what turns a quote into an argument.
Ask exactly one thing back
A reply ending in five questions reads like a form. A reply ending in one — the question that moves your number most — reads like someone who has done this before and is already thinking about their job.
Pick it by what it changes: for a cleaner, the number of bathrooms; for a roofer, the age of the roof; for a mover, the floor and whether there is a lift. If the answer would not move your price, it is not the question to lead with.