Same job, three prices
Two neighbours on the same street enquire in the same week. Same house type, same charger, similar driveways. One gets a quote from the sales manager, the other from the surveyor on a Sunday night. They compare, as neighbours do, and ring to ask why one is noticeably dearer. Nobody in the office can quite say.
Or it goes the other way. The quote says standard install, the survey showed a long run through a garage and under a path, and the fitter discovers on the day that the job needs far more cable and time than anyone priced.
Why the price depends on who writes it
Your pricing is not really written down. There is a standard install price, and then there are the extras that experienced people carry in their heads: longer cable runs, routing through lofts or garages, surface versus buried, a new mounting post, an extra enclosure, work at the board, drilling through thick walls, ground work across a drive. The survey captures most of those facts. Nothing turns them into lines on a quote except a person, from memory, in a hurry.
- The price list is an old spreadsheet, and people keep private versions.
- Survey answers are free text, so the quote writer re-reads photos to find the route.
- Extras are added or forgotten depending on who is quoting.
- Quotes are built in a word processor, so nothing checks the maths.
- Nobody sees which quotes were accepted and which were too high to win.
What inconsistent quotes cost
Underpriced extras come out of your margin, or turn into an uncomfortable conversation on install day. Overpriced quotes lose jobs you would have won. Inconsistent ones damage trust, especially with partner referrals where the partner sees many of your prices side by side. And quoting sits with a few senior people, which slows everything in busy months.
The quote builder we make
- Your price book goes into one maintained table: base install per charger model, cable per metre by type, routing options, mounting, protection devices, groundworks, and any standard exclusions.
- The survey form records the facts as structured answers (distance, route type, wall construction, whether work at the board was flagged) rather than paragraphs.
- The builder maps those answers to price book lines and produces a draft quote, showing each assumption beside the line it created.
- The surveyor or estimator reviews the draft, adjusts where their judgement differs, and records why. Nothing is sent without a person approving it.
- The customer gets a clear quote with a link to accept, pay a deposit through Stripe if you take one, and choose install dates.
- Accepted and lost quotes are logged, so you can see which lines and price points win work.
| Quote element | From memory | From the builder |
|---|---|---|
| Cable length | Estimated from photos | Survey answer times price per metre |
| Route and access | Sometimes remembered | Line added from route type answer |
| Board work flagged | Often missed | Prompted when the surveyor flags it |
| Groundworks | Priced differently each time | Standard lines from your price book |
| Price changes | Everyone's spreadsheet | One table, one edit |
If your job management software already has a quoting module, we feed it with the mapped lines rather than replacing it.
How quoting feels afterwards
More people can produce a correct quote, because the knowledge lives in the price book and the survey rather than in two heads. Neighbours comparing prices get the same answer for the same job. Fitters see the priced assumptions before they arrive, so a mismatch is spotted as a variation, not a surprise. And when a supplier puts up cable prices, one edit reaches every new quote.
You might recognise these
- Two people would quote the same job differently.
- Fitters regularly find work on site that was not priced.
- Only one or two people are trusted to quote.
- Quotes are typed into a document template.
- You cannot say which price points win and which lose.