Quoting Fast Enough to Win

Why speed wins

Somebody with a problem contacts three businesses on the same evening.

The first to reply establishes the reference point, gets to ask the questions, and is spoken to while the problem still feels urgent.

By the time a third quote arrives four days later, the customer has frequently already decided, and the arriving quote is compared against a decision rather than against nothing.

Being better is worth less than being first, which is uncomfortable and is how the decision actually gets made.

Separate the reply from the quote

The distinction that makes speed achievable without doing worse work.

A reply within an hour saying you have the enquiry, what you need to price it, and when you will send the figure is not the quote and does almost all of the work.

It puts you in the conversation, it starts the exchange of information, and it removes the silence during which the customer decides you are not interested.

The quote itself can then take the time it needs, since the customer is waiting for something specific rather than wondering.

Most businesses treat the quote as the reply, which means the response time is the preparation time, and that is the thing to break.

Where the delay actually is

• Nobody sees the enquiry for hours.
• Information is missing and has to be asked for.
• It waits for one person to be free.
• Quoting takes a sit-down at a desk.
• It sits in a list until the weekly catch-up.

The second is the largest for most trades. An enquiry lacking photographs, measurements, or an address cannot be priced, so it becomes an exchange before it becomes a quote, and each exchange costs a day.

Ask for what you need on the form

Which removes the largest delay at its source.

Work out what you actually need to price the common jobs, then ask for exactly that and nothing else.

Photographs are the single most valuable thing to request, since they answer questions the customer could not have described.

Say why you are asking, in a line, since that is what makes people bother: send two photographs and we can usually price it the same day.

That converts a three-day exchange into a same-day quote for a good proportion of enquiries.

The rest still need a conversation, which is fine, and you have reduced the number.

A worked example

A business took an average of three days to send a quote, which the owner considered normal for the trade.

Tracing it, the enquiry usually sat until evening, then needed a question, then the answer arrived the next day, then the quote was written at the weekend.

They changed three things: enquiries went to a phone as well as email, the form asked for photographs with a line explaining why, and every enquiry got an acknowledgement within the hour with the expected timing.

Average time to quote fell to under a day, and the proportion of quotes converting rose noticeably.

Several customers said they had gone with them because they were the only ones who replied quickly.

Nothing about the quality of the quotes had changed.

Quote roughly, then precisely

A tactic worth considering for anything where a precise figure needs a visit.

A same-day message giving a likely range, with the factors that would move it and an offer to confirm on site, is far more useful than an exact figure next week.

It lets the customer decide whether to proceed at all, which is the decision they are actually making at that stage.

Be explicit that it is an estimate and what would change it, so the precise figure later is not a surprise.

Businesses hesitate at this because the number might move, and the alternative is being absent from the decision entirely.

Make it possible on a bad day

Since speed that depends on a quiet week is not speed.

Have a template for the acknowledgement so it takes thirty seconds rather than a written reply each time.

Have standard figures for the common jobs so a rough quote does not require calculation.

Decide who responds when the usual person is on site, and make sure they can, which usually means the enquiry reaching more than one place.

And set a rule rather than an intention: every enquiry acknowledged the same working day, no exceptions.

A rule survives a busy fortnight and an intention does not.

Measure your own time

Because almost nobody knows what it actually is.

For a month, note when each enquiry arrived and when the quote went out, which is two columns and a minute a day.

Most businesses find the average considerably worse than their impression, because the memorable ones are the fast ones.

Look at the slowest quarter specifically, since that is where the losses concentrate and where a single change usually fixes several.

Then compare conversion by response time, which is the number that settles whether any of this is worth the effort for your business.

The acknowledgement can do the qualifying

A second job for the message that costs nothing extra.

Alongside confirming receipt, state the rough range for the work described and your earliest availability.

Somebody whose budget is a quarter of that figure will say so at that point, which saves the quote and the visit.

Somebody who needed it done this week and cannot wait until March finds out immediately rather than after a survey.

So the fast reply is not only faster, it removes the enquiries that were never going to convert while they cost a message rather than a morning.

The counter-case

Fast is not always right.

A rushed quote that turns out to be wrong costs more than a slow one, and some work genuinely cannot be priced without a visit.

Speed can also attract price shoppers, and a business already at capacity may prefer the filtering that a slower process provides.

And in some markets a considered, detailed proposal is expected, where replying within the hour reads as insufficiently thorough.

Acknowledge fast, quote as fast as accuracy allows, and ask for what you need up front.

What to do

1. Acknowledge within the hour, always.
2. Say what you need and when you will quote.
3. Ask for photographs on the form, with a reason.
4. Send enquiries to more than one place.
5. Give a rough range where a visit is needed.
6. Template the acknowledgement.
7. Track your own time for a month.

Step one is separable from everything else and does most of the work, since the silence rather than the delay is what loses the enquiry.

Getting the information to quote from is covered in quoting from photographs the customer sends.

Frequently asked questions

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.