Quote Requests That Arrive Answerable
How much does it cost is not a question yet. It becomes one after four more answers, and those four exchanges are where quotes die.
Sound Familiar?
How much does it cost
The most common enquiry there is, and the least answerable. Nothing about it tells you what is being bought.
Four e-mails to a starting point
Each one a day apart. By the time you can price it, the enquirer has a quote from someone who asked faster.
Guessing to seem responsive
A number given to avoid looking slow becomes the number you are judged against, including when the job turns out to be twice the size.
What You Get
The specifics, collected up front
You define what a quote needs in your trade. Dimensions, volumes, dates, locations, scope, asked in one conversation instead of four e-mails.
Silent on price by default
Whether the assistant states a figure is a per-site setting, off unless you turn it on, because in most trades the quote is the thing a person should send.
Published rates, said accurately
Where you do have fixed prices, they are read from what you publish, so the chat and the price list cannot drift apart.
Collected at the hour they ask
Quote requests arrive in the evening. Collecting the specifics then rather than the next morning is most of the speed advantage.