Competing against a cheaper unaccredited quote

Aug 29
3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Introduction

The customer has a quotation from somebody working from a van with no certification, at two thirds of your price. They are not foolish; they simply cannot see what the difference buys, and nobody has explained it in terms that mean anything to them.

The instinctive response is to warn them about cowboys, which sounds like a competitor complaining and is often discounted. The effective response is to describe what the customer is actually choosing between, in specifics they can verify, and then let them decide. Customers who reach the conclusion themselves do not need to be persuaded of it afterwards.

1. Competing against a cheaper unaccredited quote begins by not attacking

Criticism of a competitor reflects on you.

Customers discount warnings from an interested party, and disparagement sounds like an excuse for being expensive. Describing what is included in each option, factually, achieves what the complaint does not.

2. Explain what happens if something goes wrong

The gap that matters most.

Who honours the workmanship warranty in five years, what independent complaints route exists, and what protection applies if the business ceases trading. This is concrete, checkable and usually decisive when actually explained. It is also the part of the comparison the cheaper installer will not raise unprompted.

3. Point out what certification is required for

Sometimes the argument is settled entirely.

Grants, incentives, insurance requirements, building compliance and property transactions can all require certified installation. Where that applies, it is a factual eligibility point rather than a quality claim.

4. Make the scope difference visible

Much of the gap is not quality at all.

Scaffolding, electrical work, commissioning, monitoring, making good, and removal of waste. Listing what each quotation includes frequently closes most of the price difference before any argument about workmanship. The remaining gap is then a question about quality rather than about the total.

5. Tell them what to ask the other installer

More persuasive than telling them anything about you.

Is scaffolding included, who honours the warranty, what certification do you hold, what happens if the roof needs repair. The answers do your work for you, and the customer reaches the conclusion themselves.

6. Accept that you will lose some

The realistic position.

A proportion of customers will always choose the cheapest available price, and pursuing them is unprofitable. Winning the ones who want the work done properly, at a price that sustains the business, is the actual objective.

7. Show local completed work

Evidence beats argument.

Photographs of your installations on comparable properties, with reviews from those customers. A cheaper competitor without a track record cannot match this, and it addresses the real question, which is who to trust.

8. Do not discount to match

The decision that damages the business.

Cutting your price to meet an uncertified quote either removes your margin or forces you to leave things out, which turns you into the thing you were warning about. Hold the price and explain it.

9. Follow up after they have decided

Some of them come back.

A polite message some weeks later, without any triumph, keeps you available to customers whose cheaper installation went badly or never happened. This produces a meaningful amount of work and costs nothing.

Write the comparison down and give it to every customer. A single page setting out what your quotation includes and what to check in any other one is used at the kitchen table after you leave, which is where the decision is actually made.

Conclusion

Explain the difference factually rather than attacking the competitor, because criticism reads as self-interest.

Describe who honours the warranty and what recourse exists if things go wrong, state where certification is a requirement rather than a preference, make the scope differences visible because they explain much of the gap, give the customer questions to ask the other installer, accept that some customers will always take the cheapest price, show local completed work and reviews, refuse to discount to match, follow up weeks later, and leave a written comparison behind.