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Construction, refurbishment and installations · Canary IslandsThe quote takes two days to go out and the client has already asked three others. It isn't lost on price: it is lost by arriving late. And whoever got there first didn't measure better than you, they just had their prices to hand.
In refurbishment and installations the margin is decided in the first forty-eight hours. The rest is keeping things in order.
01
Supplier prices have to be looked up, someone has to remember what a similar job was charged at, and it all has to be laid out. With the usual prices and line items in one place, and the measurements entered once, it goes out the same day. That isn't cutting-edge technology: it is not having to look up again what you already know.
02
It is filled in by hand on site, folded, and reaches the office on Friday. Or the Friday after. Someone types it into a spreadsheet so it can be invoiced, and until then nobody knows whether the job is on hours or losing money.
03
A voice note to the warehouse guy. It works until you have to prove what was ordered, when and at what price. This is the last one I would touch: changing the habit costs more than setting it up, and you don't start with what is hardest to change.
2 daysis how long a quote takes to go out today. The client doesn't wait two days: they ask three others and go with the first one who answers.
It is counted in jobs that used to slip away. One more refurbishment a month pays for the whole project and the rest is extra, so the number to watch isn't how long quoting takes: it is how many quotes turn into jobs.
Book 15 minutesBoth figures are from your side of the counter: how long you take and how long whoever beats you to the job takes. I don't decide the other firm's speed, but it can be matched.
Of all the processes I come across, this is the one that has most often been set up badly before I arrive. And not because of the technology: because it was set up without setting foot on a site. On site there is no signal, people work with gloves on and in a hurry, and an app that asks for eight fields on a small screen never gets filled in.
That is why I don't sign it off until it has been tested on site with a worker who has never seen it before. If that can't be done, I would rather not build it.
Under the hood, this is process automation for reports and quotes, and applied artificial intelligence when the draft quote comes out of the site visit.
Video or phone call, free and with no obligation. I reply myself, within 24 hours. If I see it isn't worth it, I tell you just the same.
Or put it in writing with the 10-minute X-ray and I reply within 48 hours.