Estimate follow-up
Estimate follow-up is the chase that starts once a quote has left the office. The shop writes the touches once. The system sends those lines on the days you picked, and it stops when the customer books, declines, or asks to be left alone. A discount or a new promise waits for the person who owns the estimate.
Two ways
By hand
The estimator sends a number and moves to the next job. Someone was supposed to check back on Thursday. The reminder lives in a personal inbox, or not at all. By the time the office looks, the customer has hired the shop that called twice.
With the system
Each open estimate enters a short list of messages. The wording is the wording you approved for that kind of job. The office sees who was touched, who replied, and who is still open. Nobody rebuilds the note from memory.
Status
This is not a product you switch on. We build the sequence around the way your office already sends quotes, then a named person owns the queue. Home services is the fit we wrote it for.
How it runs
An estimate that has been sent, with the customer’s name, the job, the date it went out, and the channel you use. Text and email both work. The field-service tool you already run can be the place the estimate lives.
It waits the number of days you set, sends the next approved line, and logs the reply. If the customer asks a question the line does not cover, the thread moves to the queue instead of inventing an answer.
A list of open estimates with the last touch and the next one. The office starts the day from that list, not from a search through sent mail.
The yes
The sequence itself is approved before the first customer sees it. A check-in that only asks whether they had questions can go out on its own after that.
Money off, a free add-on, or a changed total does not send itself. The person who can give that discount reads the draft and lets it go, or does not.
If the customer says they hired someone else, or asks you to stop writing, that estimate leaves the sequence. The log keeps the reason so the next person does not restart it.
The record
Of the quotes that were still open when the chase started, how many turned into booked work. The count uses your estimates, not a benchmark from another trade.
How many days sat between the quote going out and a yes, a no, or a silence you chose to end. You can compare this month with last month from the same log.
The log does not say you would have won the job anyway. It says the touch happened, and what the customer did next.
Beside the tools
The estimate can stay in the field-service tool the crew already uses. The follow-up reads that it was sent, then uses text or email for the chase. We do not ask you to retype the quote into a second app.
A picture and a note are an earlier step. Photo quote intake gets the office a file it can price. This system starts after that price has gone out.
A brand-new inquiry is speed to lead. Follow-up here is for people who already have a number in front of them.
Who it fits
Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and roofing send a number and then go back to the truck. The home services page is the longer note on that week. This chase is one job on it.
A sensitive job, a complaint, or a quote the owner wants to handle in person can be pulled off the sequence without stopping the rest. The pause is a click, and the log shows who paused it.
If the lead has no estimate yet, this is the wrong system. Start with the first reply, or with the photo file, and add the chase when quotes are actually going out.
Questions
As many as you are willing to sign, and no more. Most shops we talk with want two or three touches, then a stop. The right count is the one your office will still respect in a busy week. A sequence of eight notes that nobody would send by hand is a sequence you should not approve. We set the count with you before anything goes to a customer.
No. A discount, a waived fee, or a lower total waits for a yes from the person allowed to give it. The approved sequence can ask if they have questions. It can repeat the total you already sent. It cannot invent a deal because the quote has been quiet. If you want a standard offer after a set number of days, you approve that offer as its own line, with the amount written down.
Jobber, Housecall Pro, and ServiceTitan are the three we plan around for home services, plus text and email. The quote stays where your estimator already built it. If you run something else, say so on the plan and we will tell you whether we can read “sent” from it. A connector we have not looked at stays off the plan.
The sequence stops. The estimate is marked declined, the reason is stored if they gave one, and nobody on the crew gets a task to “just check in” next week. A later, separate job can start a new quote. The old one does not wake back up because a timer fired.
Yes. One estimate can leave the chase while the others keep their dates. Use that for a complaint, a job the owner wants to call about, or a customer who asked for a specific person. The log shows the pause and who made it, so Monday does not look like a miss.
Open quotes
A spreadsheet, a notebook, or “we mean to call” is enough. We will say whether this chase is the first build.
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