Sent estimates go quiet, and nobody chases them.
Plumbing estimate follow-up loses to every emergency on the schedule. You price a repipe or a sewer line, send it off and hear nothing, and the next call pulls you away before you can check in.
Sound familiar?
- You send a quote for a big job, and then the line goes dead. No yes, no no.
- You mean to call back, but there's always a leak that matters more today.
- There's no list of open quotes, so you scroll through sent mail to work out who's still deciding.
- You rarely find out whether a quiet customer hired someone else or just put the job off.
What it costs you
The big tickets slip away. Repipes, sewer replacements and water heater upgrades are jobs people take time to think over, and a quiet customer is often still deciding. Whoever reaches back out gets to answer their questions.
You drove out, ran a camera down the line and wrote it all up. If the quote dies in someone's inbox, all of that was unpaid.
And sometimes the customer just forgot. A homeowner who meant to say yes can drift for weeks, until a pipe makes the choice for them and they call whoever is handy.
Why it keeps happening
Emergency work always wins. A burst pipe today beats a check-in on last week's quote, every time.
The quote went out from one person's phone or email, and only that person knows it's open.
Calling about money can feel like nagging, so it's easy to tell yourself they'll call when they're ready.
Follow-up has no deadline. Nothing breaks if it waits a day, so it waits, and then waits again.
Who you'll talk to
You'd be speaking with me, Kevin Kirchner. I'll want to know how many quotes you have out right now, how you'd find them, and what usually happens next.
Keeping tabs on open estimates and nudging the quiet ones is repetitive work. A small office can now get out from under it, and what that looks like for you comes down to how you sell.
Questions
Is it pushy to call about a quote I already sent?
It doesn't have to feel that way. A customer who went quiet may still have a question about the job, and hearing from you gives them a reason to ask it.
Why do customers stop responding after a plumbing quote?
Sometimes they hired someone else. Sometimes the job got put off, or the quote is buried under the week's mail. Unless someone asks, you can't tell which.
What exactly do you build?
It depends on how you work today; we figure that out on the call.
Related shop headaches
See all shop headaches, or go back home.
Find out which quotes are still alive
Tell me about the last quote you sent that never got an answer. I'd rather tell you it's not worth fixing than sell you something you don't need.