How to speed up your quoting process: 5 ways to quote faster

Why an efficient quoting process matters

An efficient quoting process is crucial because it can affect many different aspects of your business, including customer satisfaction, time management and productivity.

An inefficient quoting process will slow your team down, leading to delays in sending quotes. As a result, your customers will receive their quotes late, creating a poor first impression of your business. Sending a quote to a prospect is one of the first interactions you'll have with them, and if it's a bad experience, they may reject it and reach out to your competitors.

A complex process could also lead to a backlog of quotes. To get to all the requests in good time, you may have to rope in more employees to help you get through all the work. While you may get through the backlog, your team will be behind on their other tasks, decreasing productivity.

The advantages of speeding up the process

Putting measures in place to speed up your quoting process will improve customer relationships, time management and performance. Here's how.

Get quotes to customers quickly

Getting quotes to customers as soon as possible can help you build strong relationships. It creates an excellent first impression and shows them that you strive to provide an efficient service, improving your chances of winning more work. An efficient quoting process also gives you a competitive edge. If you can get a quote in the customer's hand before your competitors do, you can increase the chances of them choosing you over your competitors.

Reduce your admin time

Accelerating your quoting process reduces your admin time, giving your team more time to focus on providing outstanding service to your customers. As a result, your team can increase their output and productivity. An efficient process will prevent quotes from piling up, making quoting a manageable task rather than one that consumes your team's time.

Eliminate inefficiencies

By reviewing and changing your process to generate quotes faster, you'll find inefficiencies that can be removed, helping to create a more efficient quoting system. Identifying and eradicating time-wasters can help your employees improve their performance. Improving performance is a priority for any business, as it's the key to building a productive team.

5 ways to get quotes to clients faster

If your quoting process is slowing your team down, it's time to do something about it. Here's how you can get quotes to clients without delay.

1. Gather detailed information from prospects

Get as much information as possible from prospects so you can create a comprehensive quote they can accept the first time round. Gathering detailed information will save you time and help you get quotes approved quickly. If the document has all the information the customer needs and answers all their questions, it's easier for them to say yes, but if details are missing and they have questions, you may have to create a new quote or get in touch with them to discuss their request.

2. Create a quote template

Quoting is quick and easy when you have a quote template, as all that needs to be added to the document is pricing and the customer's information. A custom quote template ensures your logo, contact information, and terms and conditions are always on every quote. Besides saving your workers time, it helps you create professional, error-free documents. You can use Quoting Software to create and store your custom template on a cloud-based system, which your team can access when they need to generate a quote for a customer.

3. Improve your lead management

Lead management includes capturing and organising leads and managing your interactions with them. It influences your quoting process because you need quality leads before you can start quoting. Getting quotes to prospects will be challenging if you don't have an effective lead management system to organise and distribute your leads. An efficient quoting process is also futile if your employees don't follow up on quotes and nurture leads to ensure they become paying customers.

To make lead management easier, start using cloud-based software. With Lead Management Software, you can import new leads and assign them to your employees. Your team can access all their leads online, record all interactions with the prospect, send them a quote, and create tasks to follow up.

4. Use a mobile app

Creating and sending quotes on the go makes it possible for your team to get quotes to customers even when they're in the field. With Quoting Software, all your technicians need is a mobile device and data, and they can create and send quotes to customers from a mobile app. Your technicians can find your quote template, add pricing and customer details, and email the quote to the customer. Once accepted, they can convert the quote into a job and start working on the customer's project.

5. Review your quoting process with data

Reports give you insight into whether or not the changes you've made to speed up your quoting process have been effective. They can also help you determine whether your team is following the new approach, and if they're not, you can find out why and get them back on track. When you use Quoting Software to create and manage your quotes, you can generate reports and use the quotes dashboard to see how many quotes have been accepted or rejected or require a follow-up call or email.

Take action and speed up your quoting process with our Quoting Software. Get started with a 14-day free trial, or contact us to learn about our Software.