How to follow up on a quote without being annoying

Why customers go quiet after a quote

Most of the time the quote arrived and got put to one side. The customer meant to read it properly after work, then at the weekend, and now it has been ten days and replying feels awkward. Nothing about your price or your work has been decided.

The other common reasons:

• They are waiting for the other quotes to come in, so they can compare.
• Someone else has to agree: a partner, a landlord, a strata council, an insurance adjuster.
• The price was higher than they hoped, and telling you so feels rude, so they say nothing.
• The email landed in their junk folder and they never saw it.

None of those is a firm no. Some of those customers will say no in the end, but you cannot tell which ones from the silence. A follow-up is how you find out.

When to follow up

Advice on timing varies. Zendesk’s guide to sales follow-up emails says that after a verbal proposal the first follow-up should go within 24 hours, and after a quote sent by email you should “wait a couple of days”. Fieldmotion’s guide to following up on quotes starts with a courtesy check within 24 to 48 hours to confirm the quote arrived, then a proper follow-up three to five days after sending, and puts three to four contacts as reasonable for most jobs.

For a job a customer asked you to price, we would keep it to two. The first goes around day three: long enough for a couple of evenings or a weekend with the quote, soon enough that they still remember who you are. The second goes around day seven, far enough after the first that it does not feel like a nag, and while the job is still on their mind. Then stop. A customer who has let two friendly messages go by has given you an answer, even if they have not typed it.

If you priced the job in person, standing in their kitchen, a text that evening with the written quote is part of sending it. Count the follow-ups from there.

The part that matters most is deciding this before the quote goes out. A follow-up you mean to send when you get a minute is the first thing to slip on a busy week, and a quote you forget to chase is a job you lost without anyone saying no.

What to say

Short, and about their job rather than your sales. Each message needs their name, your name and your business name, which job it was, and one question they can answer without opening the quote again.

Day three

An example, to change to your own words:

Hi Pat, it’s Dana from [your business], about the quote for the new water heater. Any questions on it I can answer? Reply STOP and I won’t text again.

Day seven

The last one says it is the last one, and gives them an easy way out:

Hi Pat, Dana from [your business] again. This is my last message about the water heater quote. If you’ve gone another way or the timing’s wrong, reply no and I’ll close it off, no hard feelings. If you’d still like it done, reply yes and I’ll send some dates. Reply STOP and I won’t text again.

What to leave out

“Just checking in” and “just following up”. Fieldmotion’s guide lists these, with “circling back”, as phrases people associate with sales pressure, and they tell the customer nothing new.

“Did you get a chance to look at it?” It makes them admit they have not, which is the awkward feeling that kept them quiet in the first place.

Pressure you cannot back up. “I’ve got someone else after that slot” when you have not, or a price that is “only good until Friday” when it is good until whenever they call. Customers can usually tell, and it costs you their trust. If your quote really does expire on a date, saying so plainly is fine.

The whole quote again. They have it. If something has changed, say what changed in one line.

Make the no easy

A clear no is worth more to you than silence. It lets you release the slot you were holding, stop thinking about the job, and sometimes find out why. Customers go quiet because turning down someone who came out and measured their bathroom feels rude, so give them permission in so many words, the way the day-seven message does.

Some people who reply no will tell you why without being asked: the price, the timing, a brother-in-law who does tiling. That is the most useful thing a lost quote can give you. Thank them, and do not argue. A customer who said no politely and was thanked for it is one who might ring you for the next job.

Text or email, and the rules in Canada

Text or email

If your customers reach you by phone, follow up by text. They gave you their mobile number to arrange the visit, the message lands on the phone in their pocket, and replying yes or no takes a second. If you sent the quote by email and the customer has been writing back by email, reply on the same thread, so the quote and the follow-up sit together.

A follow-up is a commercial message

Canada’s anti-spam law covers texts as well as email, and a message about work you would like to be paid for is a commercial message. Someone who asked you for a quote has made an inquiry, and under the law an inquiry generally gives you implied consent to message that person for six months from it. Two follow-ups within a fortnight sit well inside that window.

The government page on texting for good client relations asks, among other things, whether the person gave consent (implied or explicit), whether your business name is in the message, and whether there is an unsubscribe option such as replying STOP. It adds that offering STOP is not enough on its own: when a customer uses it, you have to respect it. In its tips beyond the law, the same page suggests sending texts sparingly and asking whether there is a need to send the message at all. In practice: say who you are, include a way to opt out, and stop when asked. This is a summary of that page, not legal advice.

Stop remembering it yourself

Two messages per quote is easy to describe and hard to keep up when you are on your third job of the day. Taking it out of your hands is the fix, and there are two ways.

Check the software you already pay for

Some job-management software can send quote follow-ups on its own. If yours does, switch it on, put your own wording in, and set the timing to match the schedule above. If quote follow-up is all you want, that is the right answer, and paying for more would be a waste.

Or let our plan send them

On Droom’s $449 a month plan, unanswered quotes get a nudge on day three and day seven. The follow-ups send wording you approve first, so nothing goes to a customer that you have not read. Chasing quotes is one part of the plan: it also answers your phone, texts back the calls you miss, asks every customer for a Google review after the job, and comes with a five-page Droom website. There is no setup fee and it runs month to month. If you already pay for software that does some of this, we will say so on the call, and you are not charged to install something you already own.

For how that looks in one trade, the page on an AI receptionist for plumbers walks through a Sunday evening call and the quote that follows it. Whether the phone side is worth it depends on how many calls you miss: our guide to whether an AI receptionist is worth it covers that, and the missed call calculator works out what voicemail costs you from your own numbers. The review request at the end of each job follows the method in our guide to getting more Google reviews.