How to improve your quoting process
- Written by
- Ben Scott
- Topic
- Quoting
- Date
- Read
- 4 min
Where the time goes when you quote tray and canopy jobs, and the changes that get a firm price out the door sooner.
Monday morning, and there are eleven new enquiries. Six of them say some version of "how much for a canopy on a Hilux?" None of them say which Hilux, what's on it now, or what they want to carry.
So you start the week the way you always do: replying with questions, waiting, and pricing from memory between jobs. Quoting isn't hard work. It's slow work, and most of the slowness has nothing to do with the price.
If you want to improve your quoting process, here's where the time goes in a tray and canopy shop, and what to change first.
Find out where the time goes
Before you change anything, track one normal week. Every time you touch a quote, jot down what you were doing:
- chasing details the customer didn't give you
- working out a price from scratch
- writing or rewriting the quote
- following up a quote that went quiet
Most workshops find the pricing itself is the small part. The rest is getting enough information to price, and then waiting for a reply. That's good news, because those parts are the easiest to fix.
Get the four details in the first message
Every tray and canopy price hangs on the same four things. If they're in the first message, the quote is a lookup. If they're not, it's a conversation.
| Detail | What to ask for |
|---|---|
| Vehicle | Make, model, year, cab type, and tub or cab-chassis now |
| Tray | Steel or aluminium, and length |
| Canopy | Door style and roof height |
| Options | Drawers, water tank, fridge slide, racks, with sizes |
Put these on your enquiry form, in your auto-reply and on the sign at the counter. Give people pictures where the words are vague: a gull-wing door is obvious when you see one and a mystery when you read it. Add "not sure" options so nobody gives up halfway through.
This is the problem I built Fitout to solve: customers pick the vehicle, tray, canopy and options themselves, so the enquiry arrives with all four.
Price from a list, not from scratch
If every quote starts with a calculator, every quote takes twenty minutes. Most of what you sell repeats: the same tray lengths, the same canopy sizes, the same drawer units on the same vehicles.
Build a price list once:
- Standard products by vehicle: tray, canopy, subframe and fitting.
- Options with their own prices: drawers, tanks, slides, lights, racks, paint.
- Custom work as its own line, priced by the hour, so it doesn't hide inside the standard price.
Review it when material prices move, and date it so you know how old it is. When a quote is mostly lines from the list, you're checking a quote rather than building one.
Send a range first, a firm quote second
A customer who asks "roughly how much?" wants to know if they're in the right ballpark before they drive over. Give them that straight away: "A canopy like that on your Ranger usually comes in between $X and $Y, depending on the options."
The firm quote can wait until you've seen the ute and agreed the details. The range keeps the conversation going, and the firm quote is more accurate because you've measured.
Say clearly which one you've sent. A range is an estimate; a quote is a price you'll stand by for the work described.
Use one quote template
Every quote should look the same, so you never forget a line and the customer can compare it with the last one you sent. Include:
- the base tray and canopy, and each option, as separate lines
- what's included: fitting, paint, locks, wiring
- what isn't: registration changes, engineering, a GVM upgrade
- lead time, and what it depends on (the ute arriving, powder coat)
- the deposit and when the balance is due
- how long the quote is valid for
- the total, including GST
business.gov.au has a checklist of what a quote should include that's worth comparing against yours.
Follow up on a schedule
A five-figure build takes time to decide. The partner wants a say, the finance needs approving, the new ute hasn't arrived. A quote with no follow-up is often a job lost to whoever rang back.
Keep a list of open quotes with the date each was sent. Check in a few days later with something useful, such as a lead-time update or a photo of a similar build, and again before the quote runs out. Then stop, and close the loop politely.
Improve your quoting process one change at a time
You don't need all of this by next Monday. Pick the one that costs you the most time this week. For most shops that's getting the four details in the first message. Fix that, and every other step gets shorter.
Want to see your own range quoted this way? Talk to Ben.