How to follow up on a quote without being pushy

Silence after a quote is rarely a clear no

People ask two or three businesses for a price, then life gets in the way. The quote slides down an inbox. They want to talk it over with a partner, or they’re waiting on a landlord, or one line doesn’t make sense and they don’t want to ring and ask.

A customer who has chosen someone else seldom tells you. Nor, often, does one who hasn’t decided yet. A follow-up gives both a reason to reply, and your job is to make replying easy whatever the answer is.

Set up the follow-up before the quote goes out

The easiest follow-up is one the customer expects. While you’re pricing the job, on site or on the phone, ask when they’re hoping to decide and whether anyone else needs to see it. Then say what happens next: “I’ll send it tonight and give you a shout on Friday in case you’ve got questions.”

Friday’s message is now you doing what you said you would, rather than chasing.

A quote that is easy to accept helps too. Put in a clear total, what’s included and what isn’t, how long the price holds, and exactly how to say yes: reply to the email, sign online or ring.

A follow-up schedule that doesn’t nag

There is no single right timing, and guides disagree. What matters is that the gaps get longer and the messages end. For a typical domestic job, a pattern like this works as a starting point:

1. Two days after: check it made sense

   Skip “did you get my quote?”, which puts them on the spot. Offer to explain anything that wasn’t clear.

2. About a week after: add something useful

   When you could start, an answer to a question people often ask about this kind of job, or a detail of what’s included.

3. About two weeks after: the last note

   Say it’s the last message, when the price holds until, and that they can come back to you any time.

Stretch the gaps for bigger jobs, where people collect several quotes and take longer. Shorten them for urgent work like a leak or a broken lock, because that customer is deciding today. After the last message, stop, and mark the quote as lost so it doesn’t sit on your mind.

What to say at each step

Short, plain and clearly from a person. Three examples to adapt:

The last one does more than it looks. It gives permission to say no, and a customer who felt awkward about going quiet now has an easy way to answer.

Email, text or phone call

• Email is the easiest to send and the easiest to ignore. It suits long quotes the customer may want to reread.
• A text is harder to miss and suits domestic customers who gave you a mobile number. Keep it shorter than the email.
• A phone call suits the bigger jobs and customers who went quiet after a site visit that went well. Ring once, and if they don’t answer, send a text so they can reply when it suits them.

Mixing them works well: the quote by email, the first check-in by text, a call for the job you most want to win.

Keep follow-ups about the quote they asked for

Following up a price someone requested is a different thing from marketing to them. The ICO, which regulates marketing emails and texts in the UK, separates routine service messages from marketing, and says a message with significant promotional material in it counts as marketing. Its guide to identifying direct marketing sets out where the line falls.

In practice, keep each message to the quote. A last chase that adds “and 10% off gutter cleaning this month” has become a different kind of message. Sending marketing emails or texts to people who never asked you for anything needs their consent, with a limited exception for existing customers, as the ICO’s guide to electronic mail marketing explains. And whatever you send, if someone says no thanks, take them off the list.

Let software do the remembering

The routine above is simple. The hard part is sticking to it on a Thursday with three jobs on, which is exactly the part worth automating.

Check your job software first. Some already sends quote follow-ups: ServiceM8 through its Automation add-on, and Jobber through its automations on the Connect plan and above. If you use one of those, switch the feature on before paying for anything else. Our pages on ServiceM8 and Jobber cover what each does and what it leaves uncovered.

If your quotes live in a spreadsheet or your sent folder, or your software stops after one reminder, a follow-up sequence can run from a list of open quotes: timed messages from your own email address that stop as soon as the customer replies. That is what our quote follow-up build does, and every message is approved by you before anything is sent.

When the quote becomes a finished job, the next message worth sending is a review request.