Sent, and then silence
You spend time on a quote. It goes out by email. The customer does not reply straight away, which is normal: they are comparing, checking budget, asking a colleague. A week passes. Two. Nobody on your side follows up because nobody is reminded to, and the quote is now buried in a sent folder. Eventually you hear, or you do not, that they went with someone else.
When you ask why, the customer often says the other company followed up and answered their question. Your quote may have been perfectly competitive.
Why follow-up does not happen
Follow-up is nobody's first job. Salespeople are busy with new enquiries, which feel more urgent than old quotes. Estimators see their job as producing the quote, not chasing it. And there is usually no list of open quotes to work from, because quotes are produced in a spreadsheet, a quoting tool or a Word template, and only some of them are recorded in the CRM.
There is also a hesitation to chase. People worry about seeming pushy, so they wait for the customer to come back. Most customers expect to be followed up and many welcome it, particularly if the follow-up is useful rather than 'just checking in'.
What unchased quotes cost
| What happens | Result |
|---|---|
| No follow-up at all | Quotes lost to competitors who asked |
| Follow-up weeks later | Customer has already decided |
| Unanswered customer question | Customer assumes you are not interested |
| No record of open quotes | No idea how much work is waiting on a decision |
The time already spent producing a quote is the painful part. Every unchased quote is estimating effort that had less chance of paying off than it could have.
How we automate quote follow-up
- Register every quote: wherever quotes are produced, a record is created in the CRM or a quote register with customer, value, owner, date and expiry. We connect to your quoting tool, spreadsheet or document template to do this automatically.
- Track engagement: quotes sent as links or tracked PDFs record when they are opened, so a follow-up can be timed while the customer is looking at it.
- Schedule follow-ups per quote: the owner gets tasks at the intervals you set, with the quote, any engagement and the customer's history in front of them.
- Send useful reminders: optional emails to the customer that add something, such as answering a common question about that type of job, reminding them of the quote expiry, or offering a quick call, drafted in your tone and approved as templates.
- Watch for replies: when the customer responds, the automated sequence stops and the owner is alerted.
- Close properly: every quote ends as won, lost with a reason, or expired, so you learn why quotes are lost.
After it is in place
Every quote has an owner and a next step. Follow-ups happen at a sensible pace without anyone having to remember. Customers get answers to their questions while they are deciding. And you gain a figure most businesses do not have: the value of quotes currently waiting on a decision, and your win rate by type of work, salesperson or source.
The lost-reason data is worth more than it looks. If you keep losing on price for one type of job, or on lead time for another, you can do something about it.
Salespeople tend to find the prompts a relief rather than a burden. A task that says 'the customer opened the quote twice yesterday, here is what they asked about last time' makes the call easy to pick up. It replaces the vague guilt of a sent folder full of quotes they know they should have chased with a short, specific list for today.
Is this happening with your quotes?
- Nobody has a list of quotes waiting for a decision.
- Follow-up depends on individuals remembering.
- You often do not know why a quote was lost.
- Quotes are produced outside the CRM.
- Customers sometimes say a competitor 'got back to them first'.