Two hundred quotes, and a feeling
Ask the estimator how many quotes went out last quarter and the answer is a guess. Ask how many were won and it is a bigger guess. There is a feeling that the aerospace brackets are always lost on price and the hydraulic blocks are usually won, but nobody can check.
Meanwhile the price list is adjusted on instinct. After losing a big turned parts package, turning rates come down across the board, even though the loss may have been about lead time, not price.
Why quotes disappear after sending
Quoting is treated as the end of a job for the estimator, when it is the start of a sale. There is no pipeline, just a sent items folder. Orders arrive without a clear link to the quote, and losses arrive as silence.
- Quotes are sent from personal email accounts.
- There is no list of open quotes with values and dates.
- Follow ups depend on the estimator remembering.
- Orders are not matched to the quote they came from.
- Nobody asks the customer why a quote was lost.
What not knowing costs
Work that could have been won with a phone call a week after quoting. Prices set without knowing whether you are too high or too low for each kind of work. Time spent quoting for customers who never place orders. And orders placed at an old quoted price after material has gone up, because nobody spotted the quote had expired.
The quote register we build
- Every quote is recorded when it is sent, with customer, contact, part numbers, material, part type, quantities, value, validity date and the estimator.
- Quotes are sent from the register, or copied into it from the shared quote mailbox, so none are missed.
- A follow up task is set for each quote, by default a set number of working days after sending. The estimator or a sales person sees a daily list.
- Incoming purchase orders are matched to open quotes by customer, part number and reference. A PO against an expired quote is flagged before it is accepted.
- When a quote is closed as lost, the tool asks for a reason: price, lead time, went elsewhere, project cancelled, no response.
- Reports show win rate and value by customer, part type, material and estimator, and the average time to quote.
| Report | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Win rate by part type | Where your pricing and capability fit the market |
| Win rate by customer | Who uses you as a real supplier and who only checks prices |
| Loss reasons | Whether price or lead time is the usual problem |
| Open quotes by value | What to follow up this week |
| Time to quote | Whether speed is costing you work |
After a few months of records
Follow ups happen, which alone wins some work that would have drifted. You can see which customers send RFQs and rarely buy, and decide how much effort to spend on them. Price changes are based on real win and loss patterns by part type rather than one lost job that stung. Orders against expired quotes are caught before you commit to an old price.
You may also find work you are quietly good at. A run of wins on thin wall aluminium parts or long slender shafts is a sign the market values that capability, and it tells you which customers and sectors to go after when the order book is thin.
Is this how your quotes are handled?
- Nobody knows your win rate.
- Quotes are sent from individual inboxes.
- Follow ups happen occasionally.
- Orders arrive against quotes nobody can find.
- You have accepted an order at an out of date price.