PROBLEM
Updated on
AN ENQUIRY COMES IN,THE QUOTE GETSLOST ON THE WAY
Nobody loses a quote. What gets lost is the thread from enquiry to answer.
THE ANSWER
I put enquiries, quotes and follow-ups in one place. Every deal carries a record, a visible status and an owner. The quote fills itself from what you already captured. The follow-up fires on its own, on the rule you set. Process automation: €1,500–€10,000, VAT excluded, two to six weeks.
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IN SHORT
Process automation: €1,500–€10,000, VAT excluded.
Above €8,000 a definition sprint comes first.
Two to six weeks, spec to handover.
Only receipt acknowledgements go out unattended.
THE COST
WHAT A LOST QUOTE COSTS
None of this shows up in the accounts. It shows up in the diary of whoever does the work, and in deals that go quiet.
The enquiry arrives and nobody owns it
It lands in a shared inbox, a website form, a chat thread, a phone call. Everyone assumes somebody else has picked it up. For two days nobody has.
The same detail typed three times
Name, company, request and figure travel from the email to the sheet, the sheet to the template, the template to the accounts system. The mistake enters at the second hop, because nobody reads it back.
The follow-up rides on one memory
The second contact closes a good share of deals. It only happens if somebody thinks of it. In a busy week, nobody does.
Nobody can say where a deal stands
Answering «where are we with that client» takes three tools and two colleagues. The question comes round every week. Every week it costs the same half hour.
The quote lands after the decision
Three days late on a warm enquiry is not something a discount fixes. By then the client has an answer from somebody else.
Nothing can be counted
How many enquiries last month, how many quoted, how many closed. With no single place they all pass through, nobody can produce those numbers.
HOW IT GETS FIXED
FROM ENQUIRY TO FOLLOW-UP
The order matters. A reminder built on data arriving from three places sends the wrong chaser, and sends it fast.
I look at how an enquiry arrives
Website form, direct email, phone, chat, referrals. How many a week, who touches them first, where they stall.
I build one point of entry
Every channel lands in the same register, with the same fields. Forms and inboxes pour in on their own. Calls get logged in thirty seconds, because at five minutes nobody logs them.
I give every deal a status
New, in progress, quote sent, waiting, closed. One status at a time, with a name beside it. Without an owner a status is a label going stale.
I generate the quote from the record
The document fills from the enquiry fields, on your template and your numbering. Whoever sends it checks and signs, rather than retyping.
I hand the follow-up to the system
After the number of days you set, a deal with no reply comes back to the top. A reminder reaches its owner, or a drafted email waits for approval. The rule is yours, the clock is the system’s.
I run it on real enquiries
The system runs on live enquiries, with a log and an alert when something fails to go through. Then I write the instructions for the people using it daily.
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THE HANDOVER
WHAT YOU KEEP
A map of how they arrive
How an enquiry reaches you today, channel by channel. With the sticking points marked on it.
One register of enquiries
Forms, inboxes and channels feeding a single place. The fields that earn their keep, and none of the rest.
Statuses, owners and reminders
The rules for moving a deal on, and for chasing it. Written down and running. Not left to whoever happens to be in that day.
Quotes generated from the record
Your template, filled from the enquiry fields. Numbered and filed without anyone doing it by hand.
A log and its alerts
A record of what went through. An alert when a connection stops working. (And a way to pick up by hand whatever did not.)
Operating instructions
One page for the people using it every day. What the system does, what stays with you. What to do when something looks wrong.
THE TERMS
RANGE, TIMING, WHAT I NEED
- Range
- Process automation: €1,500–€2,500 essential, €2,500–€5,500 standard, €5,500–€10,000 advanced. VAT excluded.
- Timing
- Two to six weeks, from the spec to handover. It moves with the channels to collect and the exceptions to handle.
- When a sprint comes first
- Above €8,000, with several integrations or sensitive data. Range €800–€2,000, deductible from the project when we agree that in the proposal.
- What I need from you
- Access to the tools you already run. And one person who can decide the follow-up rules.
- Outside the price
- Your CRM, mail and signing plans stay yours. They stay in your name and on your invoice.
- After handover
- Monthly support runs €250–€900. It is optional, and it is priced on the system I hand over.
A new CRM fixes nothing while enquiries keep landing in an inbox that belongs to nobody.
QUESTIONS
- Do I have to replace my CRM?
- Almost never. The problem is not which tool you have. It is that nothing holds the thread between the enquiry and the follow-up. I start from what is already in the building.
- Can I keep the spreadsheet?
- It can stay, if that is where your team reads the numbers. But it stops being the source and becomes a view: it updates from the register. A sheet four people edit at once is not an archive.
- What about enquiries by phone?
- They go into the same register, through a short form filled in while you are still on the call. That is the rule: if logging an enquiry costs more than the enquiry, nobody will. And the system starts to lie.
- Do automatic reminders make us sound like a machine?
- That depends on who presses send. The system brings the deal back up and drafts the text. A person sends it, edits it, or stops it. The only messages that go out alone are acknowledgements of receipt.
- How much of my team’s time?
- A few hours in all. A couple of conversations about the process, the access, and a review of the rules before they go live. The long part is mine. The deciding part is yours.
- Can we start with one piece?
- Yes, and it is usually the way in. The piece that pays back first is the single register. Without it, every automation downstream works on incomplete data. Generated quotes and reminders come next.
If you cannot say how many enquiries came in last week, this is the problem. Tell me how they reach you today. I will say which piece to connect first.