Silence after a quote feels like a verdict on your price. It usually is not. It is a customer who asked three businesses, got three different-looking pieces of paper, put off the decision, and then let it slide. The quote that wins is often just the one that was easiest to say yes to on the day they finally sat down with it.
Silence is not a no. It is an unmade decision
Think about what is actually on the other end. Someone stood in their drive on a Sunday, decided the patio had gone green, and messaged three businesses that evening. By Wednesday they have two prices and one no-reply. Neither price means much to them — they have no idea what a patio clean costs, which is why they asked for three.
What they are really deciding is who they would rather have turn up. That decision gets made on small things: whether you wrote down what you would actually do, whether the price covered the bits they were worried about, whether anyone came back to them afterwards.
A quote is not a price. It is the first sample of what working with you is like.
Four things that make a quote answerable
Before the follow-up, fix the quote. A quote that cannot be said yes to will not be rescued by chasing it.
1. Describe the job, not the trade
"Driveway cleaning — £280" tells the customer nothing they can check. "Pressure wash the block-paved drive and path to the side gate, treat for weeds and moss, re-sand the joints, approx. 65m² — £280" tells them you looked. It also protects you: when they ask on the day whether you will do the path round the back, the answer is already written down.
2. Price the worry, not just the work
Every job has one thing the customer is quietly anxious about — the conservatory roof, the neighbour's car, the drain that backs up, the mess. Name it and say what you will do about it. Half a line about sheeting the beds is worth more than another paragraph about your equipment.
3. Give the price somewhere to land
Two options beat one, and beat three. A standard job and a bigger version of it — drive only, or drive plus path and patio — turns "is this expensive?" into "which one?". Where the work comes round again, show the repeat price next to the one-off price: the first clean at £95, then £45 every eight weeks, is a much easier number to look at.
4. Say what happens next
End with a single instruction. "Reply with a yes and I will book you in for the week of the 15th" is a decision someone can make in ten seconds on a phone. "Let me know your thoughts" is homework.
Put a date on it
A quote that is valid for 30 days gives the customer a reason to answer, and gives you a clean reason to get back in touch on day 28. It also stops a price you gave in spring being held against you in November.
The follow-up: two messages, and then stop
Most people never follow up at all, because it feels like pestering. It is not. You are answering a question they already asked. Two contacts is plenty, and the timing matters more than the wording.
| When | What it is | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Day 3 | A nudge that adds something — a date you can hold, or an answer to the thing they hesitated over. | "Morning — I have Thursday the 18th free and could hold it for you until Friday. Happy to do just the drive first if you would rather see how it comes up." |
| Day 10–14 | The close-out. Give them a graceful exit and you will be surprised how often you get a yes instead. | "Just tidying my diary — shall I keep your quote open or close it off for now? Either is fine, and the price stands until the 12th." |
| After that | Nothing. Put a note in for next season and leave them alone. | — |
Send them however you first heard from the customer. If they messaged from a phone at nine in the evening, a text will be read; an email with an attachment may not be. And keep both short enough to answer with one thumb.
The real problem is remembering
None of this is difficult. It fails because on day three you are up a ladder, and by the time you are back in the van the quote is four days old and half-forgotten. Follow-up is not a discipline problem, it is a memory problem, and memory problems are solved by writing things down where they will be seen again.
Whatever you use — a board, a notebook, a CRM — it needs to answer one question in a couple of seconds: which quotes have been sitting there for more than three days? If answering that means scrolling your sent folder, you will not do it in a busy week, and busy weeks are exactly when quotes go cold.
The short version
- Silence means undecided, not no. Treat it as unfinished work.
- Write what you will do, in the customer's words, and name the thing they are worried about.
- Offer two options and one clear next step.
- Nudge on day three with something new, close it out at a fortnight, then leave it.
- Keep quotes somewhere that shows you their age without being asked.
Every quote, and how long it has been quiet
Services CRM keeps quotes on the same board as the rest of the work, so the ones going cold are in front of you rather than in your sent folder. Accept one and it becomes a scheduled job on the spot.
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