After the Quote is sent to the customer (or prospect) you’re one step closer to the sale!
However, your work is not yet done, and communication after the sent Quote is critical to improving your win rate. There may be questions or feedback on the quote details, or negotiation depending on what is being sold. If you wait for the customer to get back to you, weeks can go by and the job can become less of a priority. If you are bidding on a job with other competing service providers, the businesses that take the initiative to continue the conversation and handle objections will have a much higher chance of winning than those that don’t.
⚠️ Warning: If you are not using Quoting Software to track your quote activity, your business may have outdated organizational workflows including:
1. Creating Quotes in Microsoft Word, Excel, and/or Google Drive
– Limitations on tracking revisions and quote lookup functions
– Lack of template management and standardization of pricing for services, bundles
2. Sending Quotes from your Email Client (Outlook, Mac Mail, Gmail)
– Limitations on management oversight, unable to reassign a quote
– Unable to track and report on deals pending, deals won/lost, and closing rate
Keeping track of the status of every Quote sent lets the Business Owner and/or Sales Manager oversee the sales activity and take action when needed to improve sales performance. Team meetings become more productive when you can pull a report in Quoter to discuss strategy for pending deals, celebrate the wins and collect feedback on Quotes lost.
In the event that an employee leaves the company, their Quote history will remain in Quoter and can be reassigned as needed. New hires can be onboarded faster by researching the Quote history by customer account and running reports to learn the popular services and pricing of the business.
All published Quotes will have a Quote Status:
Quote Statuses are maintained by the Quote owner. A Pending Quote will be updated to Accepted if the end customer accepts the Quote by accepting it in the web view or PDF.
This is a critical step in optimizing your quote-to-cash process.
1. Quick Report: Filter By Quote Owner with status Pending
This report will display all pending quotes sorted by the date published. The Sales Manager role will be able to pull a report for all quotes, whereas the Salesperson will only see quotes they have published or have been assigned to them. See more on user permissions.
Take Action: If you haven’t heard back after sending the quote it does not necessarily mean the deal is lost. People are busy, and it’s important to stay on top of your pending quotes to keep communication open.
After the Quote is sent, we recommend this follow-up sequence.
Day 0: Quote Sent
Day 2: Email follow-up
Day 4: Email follow-up
Day 5: Phone call follow-up
Note: This is a general guideline and there will be differences depending on new vs. existing client quotes or sales cycle length. If there is a prolonged decision-making process it is important to set expectations for the next follow-up date (ie: next week, the beginning of next month etc).
Pro Tip: Use Email Tracking to inform your follow-up. For example, if you can see the initial quote was delivered but not opened after 2 days It would be wise to call and confirm the email was received and didn’t end up in spam.
Check the outbound email history on a pending quote.
When was the last email sent? Check email tracking for delivery, open, and click time stamps.
Sales Manager: Follow up with the Quote Owner, Re-assign Pending Quotes that have gone stale, or send a follow-up email to the Quote Recipient.
2. Quick Report: Filter By Quote Owner with status Accepted
Take Action: Follow up on quotes that have been accepted but not fulfilled.
Sales Manager: Acknowledge top-performing Quoters during that reporting period. See Reporting & Analytics for more details on sales performance.
3. Quick Report: Filter By Quote Owner with status Lost
Take Action: There are valuable insights by learning why deals are lost. Was it the price? Offer misalignment? Timeline? The Quote Owner can add internal notes to a lost quote for record-keeping and identify ways to improve.
Schedule a 3-month or 6-month check-in with the customer or prospect to confirm they are happy with their alternative solution. Sometimes things don’t go as planned and there may be an opportunity to re-open the conversation.
Sales Manager: Schedule month-end or quarterly meetings to review lost quotes.
The best way to start is by booking a product demo and we’ll show you some of the key ways your business can use Quoter to optimize your quoting process. We also have a friendly support team to assist with service implementation.
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