A walkthrough of one decision from search to signature, showing that the winning quote is usually not the cheapest but the one the customer could understand, and that most of the deciding happens before any quote is sent.

Thursday evening: the search

She has decided to have the exterior of the house painted. The decision was made months ago and postponed; a neighbour having it done is what moved it.

She searches on her phone, from the sofa, with the television on. She is not researching carefully. She is looking for three businesses to contact.

She opens five sites. Two she closes within seconds: one loads slowly and shows a full-screen photograph with no visible way to contact anybody, the other has no indication of whether they cover her area.

What was lost here: two businesses, before any human was involved, on load speed and on a missing service area. Neither will ever know.

Thursday evening: the shortlist

Of the three remaining, she notices different things.

The first has photographs of actual houses in what looks like her neighbourhood, and a page explaining what preparation includes. She reads it, because it answers something she had not thought to ask.

The second is a well-designed site with a portfolio and no pricing information at all. She cannot tell whether they do jobs her size.

The third has a rough price range by house size. It is higher than she hoped and she keeps them anyway, because now she knows what this costs.

What happened: the range did not lose the job by being high. It converted a vague dread into a number she could plan around, which is why she kept them.

Thursday evening: the forms

She contacts all three, in about four minutes.

The first has a short form and a confirmation page saying they respond within one business day and giving a number for anything urgent. She feels she has done something.

The second requires a full address, a preferred contact time, and how she heard about them. She abandons it and calls instead, getting voicemail.

The third has a form that clears itself when she mistypes her email. She does not fill it in again.

What was lost here: the third business, entirely, on a form validation error. They had the best pricing transparency and never received the enquiry.

Friday morning: the responses

The first business calls at nine, asks four questions about the house, and books a visit for Tuesday.

The second calls back Friday afternoon, apologetic, and offers Thursday next week.

She has now formed an impression that has nothing to do with painting.

What happened: response time did most of the work. The first business is not better at painting; it answered first, and that is being read as competence.

Tuesday: the visit

The first estimator walks the property, points out two areas of rot she had not noticed, explains what preparation the job needs and why, and says he will send a quote Thursday.

He also mentions that the north side will need more work than the rest, and that a cheaper quote will probably not include it.

What happened: he gave her a way to evaluate the quotes she has not yet received. That is the single most effective thing anybody does in this entire process.

Thursday: three quotes

By the following week she has three numbers, with a spread of about nine hundred dollars between the lowest and the highest.

The lowest is a single page with a total and the words exterior painting.

The middle one lists the work in stages, states the products and the number of coats, and specifies the rot repair separately.

The highest is similar to the middle but with a longer warranty and a start date six weeks out.

What happened: she can only compare two of them. The lowest quote is a number with no content, and comparing it to the others is impossible, so she stops trying.

The decision

She books the middle one.

Not the cheapest, and not the most thorough. The one she understood.

Her reasoning, if asked: they answered first, they explained what the job involved before quoting, the quote matched what he had described on site, and she could see what she was paying for.

The cheapest business will conclude they lost on something other than price, and will never learn that the quote itself was the problem.

Where the job was actually won

Reading the sequence backwards, the decisive moments were not where anybody would expect.

  1. The site loading and stating a service area, which eliminated two competitors before contact.
  2. The preparation page, which taught her what to ask.
  3. The published range, which kept a business in contention rather than losing it.
  4. The working form and the confirmation, which is where a competitor lost her silently.
  5. The response time, which she read as competence.
  6. The estimator explaining before quoting, which gave her the comparison criteria.
  7. The itemised quote, which was the only one she could evaluate.

Five of those seven happened before anybody quoted anything, and three of them were website decisions.

The business that won was not the best painter in the group. It was the one that made itself easy to choose at every point where she could have stopped, which is the same explanation-as-product argument set out in the painting contractor site that loses the job.

Frequently asked questions

Where are most competitors eliminated?

Before any contact. In this walkthrough two of five were closed within seconds on load speed and a missing service area, and neither business will ever know.

Does publishing a high price lose the job?

Not here. The range was higher than she hoped and she kept them anyway, because it converted a vague dread into a number she could plan around.

What silently loses enquiries?

Form failures. One business had the best pricing transparency and never received the enquiry because the form cleared itself on a mistyped email.

How much does response time matter?

It did most of the work. The first business to call was not better at the trade, but answering first was read as competence.

What is the most effective thing an estimator does?

Explaining what the job involves before quoting, which gives the customer criteria to evaluate quotes they have not yet received.

Why did the cheapest quote lose?

It was a total with no content, so it could not be compared to the itemised ones. She stopped trying, and that business will assume it lost on something else.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Losing jobs and not knowing where?

We walk your own sequence from search to signature, which usually finds the loss happening earlier than anybody expected.

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