Why quotes go silent, and what to do on day 3, 7 and 14

You measured the terrace, priced it carefully and sent the estimate on Tuesday. On Friday there is still nothing. By the next week you have moved on to the next site visit, and the Tuesday estimate joins the pile of quotes that were never followed up. It is not a small pile. When I went through a year of MB Helmar’s estimates, most of the ones we lost were never declined. They just went quiet, and so did we.

Silence is usually not a no

Put yourself on the customer’s side. They asked three companies. Two came to measure. One estimate arrived as a PDF, one as a Word file and one as a message. They are comparing prices that are not comparable, they have a job and children, and nothing in any of the three documents tells them what happens next. So nothing happens. The decision is not made against you; it is simply not made.

That is the whole case for following up. You are not chasing. You are giving a busy person a reason to decide this week instead of never.

The schedule that works

After trying longer sequences and shorter ones, this is what held up: three short notes and then a call.

1. 01

   Day 3: the practical note

   One question that helps them decide. “Would the louvred roof or the fixed one suit the garden better?” It reopens the page and reminds them the estimate has choices, not just a total.

2. 02

   Day 7: the availability note

   The honest state of your calendar. “We can start the week of the 12th if the advance is in by the 5th.” A real date does more than any discount.

3. 03

   Day 14: the expiry note

   Every estimate should carry a validity date. Before it passes, say so plainly: material prices are fixed until then, and after that you will requote at the current supplier prices.

4. 04

   Then a call

   If three notes get nothing, a two-minute call closes the loop either way. A clear no is worth more than a quote that haunts your pipeline for months.

What a follow-up should never do

• Offer a discount for silence. It teaches every customer that waiting is cheaper. If the price needs to move, send a new version with a changed scope, not the same scope for less.
• Sound like a robot. Short, from your own email address, signed with your name. The customer met you on site; the note should sound like that person.
• Ignore a question. If a customer asks something on day 5, the sequence must stop and a person must answer, with an owner and a time by which they will.

Counting what happens

The other half of following up is knowing whether it works. Count your close rate as won divided by decided, by month and by trade. Quotes still waiting are not in the denominator; they are the ones you are following up. A month with five accepted and three declined is a 62 % close rate, even if twelve more are silent. That number moves when your follow-ups improve, and it is the one to watch.

Doing it in Helmar.AI

The sequence above is the default in the product: day 3, day 7 and before expiry, in business hours in the customer’s time zone, at most one message in two days, and then a call task for you. Every message is reviewed and approved by you before it is sent from your own address, and safe mode shows the next seven days of messages before anything goes out. A reply stops the sequence within 60 seconds and lands in a queue with an owner and a due time. AI drafts. You approve before anything is sent.

And you can start with the quotes you already sent: add them, forward the email or import a list, and the follow-ups run from their real sent dates. The Tuesday estimate is not lost yet.