They got busy
Work, kids, life. Nothing pauses because someone is renovating a bathroom. Your quote landed in an inbox that already had forty other things in it.
Quote follow-up
The quote that went quiet.
You measured up. You priced it properly — materials, labour, the awkward bit under the house. You sent it. Then nothing. No thanks-we'll-think-about-it. No went-with-someone-else. Just silence. Every quote gets chased on a schedule until you have an answer, so the work you already did to win the job does not evaporate.
Fig. — what it costs
A dead quote costs more than a missed call.
A missed call costs you an enquiry. A dead quote costs you the enquiry plus everything you already spent to be in a position to win it.
- 01
The time you already spent
Diesel to the site. An hour, sometimes half a day, on the measure-up. Time back at the ute or the kitchen table working out materials, labour and margin. For a reroof or a switchboard upgrade that is a proper site visit, sometimes two.
- 02
None of it is refundable
If the customer goes quiet and nobody chases, you do not just lose the job. You lose the job and the cost of chasing it in the first place. Across a normal month that is real, priced-out labour sitting in limbo.
- 03
The calendar space you held
If you priced a job expecting to start in three weeks, you may have turned down or delayed work around that slot. When the quote quietly dies, the gap you kept open goes with it.
- 04
Why this is the highest-value fix
You are not trying to generate a new lead here. You are trying to stop wasting one you already paid for.
Fig. — why it happens
Silence is usually not a no.
Most tradies read silence as rejection. Most of the time it is not, and that reframe changes what follow-up even means.
They are waiting on someone else
A partner who is away. A bank. Another quote they are still waiting on so they can compare properly. The ball is still in play — nobody has picked it up.
They meant to reply and forgot
Which looks exactly like going cold from your end, and is not the same thing at all.
So following up is not nagging
If silence usually is not a no, chasing is not pressure. It is finishing the conversation the customer started when they asked you to quote. And sometimes silence really is a no — the point is not to chase forever, it is to stop assuming the worst after one unanswered message.
Fig. — what good follow-up looks like
Present, without being pushy.
Good follow-up is closer to good manners than good sales technique. This is the cadence that NZ trade sources like Builderscrack and BizCover both independently recommend — and it is what the front desk runs for you.
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Confirm it landed, fast
Within a day or two, check they received it and can open it. Quotes get buried in spam or opened once on a phone and never found again. This first touch is basic admin, and it tells the customer you are organised.
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Give them a reason to reply
Just checking in is weak. Happy to talk through the switchboard options if anything was unclear gives them something to respond to.
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Space it out
A receipt check in the first day or two, a proper follow-up around the one-week mark, and a final check-in two to three weeks out. Longer for a reroof, where the customer may genuinely be comparing three quotes over a month. Compressed to days for small urgent jobs.
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Know when to stop
Three follow-ups is usually enough. After that, more contact reads as pressure rather than service. A polite the quote is good for X days if you want to go ahead is a better final note than another chase.
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Match the channel to the job
A text suits a small job and a busy customer. A call suits a bigger job with a real conversation in it. Email is for anything that needs to be in writing.
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Do it every time
None of this requires cleverness. It requires consistency — including on the jobs you are less excited about, which is exactly where it slips.
Fig. — one reroof quote
How it runs, start to answer.
A reroof quote, from the evening it goes out to the day you get a decision.
- Day 0
You send the quote after knock-off, from the site notes you took that morning.
- Day 1
A short message confirms the quote landed and asks if anything needs explaining. No pressure, no just-checking-in.
- Day 1
They reply with a question about timing. It is logged and passed to you to answer in your own words — scope and pricing always come back to you.
- Day 4
No further reply. A second touch goes out referencing the actual job — the reroof, the colour they were leaning toward — not a generic nudge.
- Day 10
Still quiet. A follow-up reminds them the price is held for a set period, which is often what gets a decision moving either way.
- Day 14
They reply: gone with the neighbour's guy who could start sooner. Logged as lost, with the reason recorded — useful for how you price and schedule the next one.
Plenty of quotes come back with a yes on day four, or go quiet until day twenty and land anyway. The point is not to force an outcome. It is that every quote gets the same standard of attention whether or not you remembered to chase it.
Illustrative example. Timings shown are not a guaranteed response time, and results depend on your market, your rules, and how quickly you follow through.
Fig. — the limits, in writing
What stays your call.
Follow-up is chasing an answer. It is not negotiating one.
- No discounting, ever
- The front desk never talks a price down to close a job. If a customer pushes for a lower number, that comes straight back to you.
- No promises on timing
- Whether you can start Monday is your answer to give, not the system's.
- Your wording, your tone
- Every message is built from what you approved — your pricing, your scope, the way you actually talk.
- You decide how hard to push
- Whether to sweeten a deal, hold firm, or walk away from a job that is more trouble than it is worth.
- Stops when it is a no
- Once a quote is genuinely declined it is logged as lost and the follow-up stops. This is built to chase an answer, not to wear people down.
A follow-up system that negotiates on your behalf is one that can quietly give away your margin while you are not looking. This one keeps the conversation open and leaves the decisions with you.
Fig. — what you can do this week
A follow-up habit you can run off your phone.
You do not need a system to chase a quote. You need a rule and somewhere to write the date down. If this fixes it, you have saved yourself a monthly bill, and that is a better outcome than us selling you one.
- 01
Put a follow-up date on the quote the day you send it
Not a mental note. A calendar entry with the customer's name on it, set for three or four days out, made at the moment you hit send. The reason quotes go unchased is almost never a decision not to chase them. It is that nothing ever prompted anyone.
- 02
Make the first touch about the quote, not about the decision
Checking they received it and can open it is admin, and it is easy to send. Asking whether they want to go ahead is a sales call, and it is not. The first one gets answered far more often, and it opens the door for the second.
- 03
Give it three touches, then stop
A receipt check, a proper follow-up about a week later, and a final note a fortnight or so after that. Three is enough. Past that you are not being persistent, you are being a nuisance, and the difference matters more than one job.
- 04
Keep a list of quotes out, not quotes sent
A sent folder is a record of what you did. A list of what is still open is a record of what is still winnable. They are different documents and only one of them makes you money.
- 05
Log why the lost ones were lost
One word is enough — price, timing, went elsewhere, never replied. After a dozen you will know whether you have a follow-up problem, a pricing problem, or a qualification problem, and those need three different fixes.
Do all five consistently and you will win quotes you are currently losing. The catch is consistency: the follow-up that slips is always the one for the job you were least excited about, which is exactly the one still worth having.
Fig. — who feels it hardest
The bigger the quote, the more it hurts.
Every trade loses quotes to silence, but the pain scales with how much the quote cost to produce and how long the customer takes to decide.
Roofers
Hardest hit. A reroof means a proper inspection and a price running into five figures, and customers often sit on the decision for weeks while they gather two or three quotes and talk it over at home. That is a long window for a job to die from neglect rather than a genuine no.
See the roofing front deskElectricians
Felt most on switchboard upgrades and larger rewiring — work that is not urgent enough to force a fast decision but expensive enough that the customer wants to sit with the number.
See the electricians' front deskPlumbers and drainlayers
Cylinder replacements and bathroom work. Priced properly on site, then left to simmer while the customer checks with a partner. Small emergency callouts rarely go quiet — it is the considered, higher-value jobs that need chasing.
See the plumbing front deskFAQ
Common questions
FAQ. 01 Does Tradie Front Desk use AI to follow up my quotes?
The follow-up runs on messages you approved, sent on a schedule you control. Nothing improvises answers to your customers, and nothing sets pricing or makes commitments on your behalf. It is a managed service, not software you have to run.
FAQ. 02 How soon should I follow up after sending a quote?
Within a day or two, just to confirm it landed and answer early questions. That first touch is not a sales push — it makes sure your quote did not disappear into a spam folder.
FAQ. 03 How many times should I follow up before giving up?
Three is a sensible ceiling for most jobs — a receipt check, a proper follow-up about a week later, and a final check-in a couple of weeks after that. Bigger jobs justify stretching it; small urgent jobs compress it into days.
FAQ. 04 Will it discount my price or negotiate with customers?
No. It never discounts, negotiates, or commits on your behalf. Its job is to keep the conversation open and get you an answer.
FAQ. 05 What if a customer says no — will you keep contacting them?
No. Once a quote is declined it is logged as lost and follow-up stops.
FAQ. 06 Is this only worth it for big quotes?
It helps with both, but the impact is biggest on jobs that cost you the most to quote — a proper measure-up, a site visit, real pricing time. A quick callout quote still benefits, it just needs fewer touches.
Free Front Desk Audit
Stop losing quotes you already paid to produce.
You already did the hard part — the measure-up, the pricing, the drive out and back. Book a free audit and we'll look at how your quotes are followed up right now, or are not, and what a proper system would look like.
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Not shared leads. Not just ads. Not another app. A managed front desk built for trade businesses.