The quote you sent that went quiet

You priced it on the Tuesday, wrote it up on the Thursday night, sent it Friday morning. Then nothing. No no, no yes, no reply at all. A fortnight later you're still not sure whether to ring, because ringing feels like chasing and chasing feels like you need the work.

So the quote sits there. And most of the time, so does the job.

Silence is rarely a no

A customer who has decided against you usually just stops. They don't ring to tell you, because telling a tradesman he hasn't got the job is an awkward two minutes nobody volunteers for. That much is obvious.

What's less obvious is how many of the silent ones haven't decided anything. They opened it on a phone, at work, meant to read it properly that evening, and it slid down the inbox. They're waiting on a partner to look at it. They're waiting on a third quote that's late. They assumed you'd chase if you still wanted it, and read the fact that you didn't as you being too busy for them.

Both sides do it

Worth saying plainly, because it cuts both ways. Leon had a terrace to quote at two thousand pounds. It went out three weeks late and the customer chased him twice, and both times he said he was waiting on the tile price. He wasn't. He hadn't written it. He knew roughly what it would cost from the day he stood in the garden.

Nothing was wrong with the job, the price or the customer. It sat because writing it was the last thing at the end of a working day, and there's always another end of a working day tomorrow.

If you've done that, you already know what your own customer's silence probably is.

The follow-up almost nobody does

Most firms send a quote and wait. The ones that don't wait aren't pushier, they're just organised, and it's usually three touches over about a fortnight.

• The next day. Not a chase. A short line confirming it arrived and offering to go through anything on it. Half the replies you get all month come from this one.
• Around day three. One useful thing they didn't ask for. When you could start, what the price does and doesn't include, what usually changes on a job like theirs. Give them a reason to open it, not a reminder that you're waiting.
• Around day fourteen. The honest one. Ask outright whether it's still live, and say plainly that you'll leave them be if it isn't. People answer this. A clean no is worth having, because it's off your list and out of your head.

That's it. No urgency, no deadline that isn't real, no discount for deciding by Friday. Three messages, sent when you said they'd be sent.

Why it usually doesn't happen

Not because tradespeople don't know it works. Because it lands on the same evening as the quoting, the invoicing and the receipts, and the follow-up is the only one of those that nobody is waiting on you for. It's the first thing to fall off, every time, and it falls off quietly.

Which is exactly the kind of job that should stop being a job you remember to do.

What we do about it

Every enquiry Cobalt takes gets seven days of automatic follow-up, in your name, at sensible hours, and it stops the moment they reply. You see the conversation, you don't have to run it.

On the higher plan the quote itself gets drafted for you from a voice note and a couple of photographs, with your margin worked out privately, and you check it before it goes anywhere. Then the invoice, the receipts and the job records follow on behind it.

You can watch a quote get built from a voice note in about fifteen minutes, or ring the receptionist on 07401 200177 and ask it what it does. Both plans are priced in public, and the two minute check will put a number on what your own silent quotes are worth.