Following up with people who were never quoted at all

6 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Introduction

Every business has a category of enquiry that ends before anything is priced. Somebody made contact, a conversation started, and it stopped: they did not reply to a question, the survey was never booked, the information needed to quote never arrived. These records sit in a state that is neither won, lost nor quoted, and nothing further happens to them.

They are frequently more numerous than the quotes that were lost, and they receive none of the attention. That is a strange allocation, because a proportion of them are people who still have the need and who stopped for a reason unconnected to any judgement about you.

1. Following up with people who were never quoted starts with counting them

The first step.

Enquiries in the last year with no quote against them. Most businesses have never produced this number and are surprised by it, which is itself the argument for doing something. Add up their likely value and the case makes itself.

2. Find out where they stopped

The diagnostic.

Before a reply, after one exchange, after a survey was proposed, waiting for information from them. Each points at a different part of your process and a different remedy. A concentration at one point is a process fault rather than a run of uninterested enquirers.

3. Look at your own side first

The uncomfortable check.

A share of these stopped because you did not reply, replied slowly, or asked for something onerous. That is a process fault rather than a disinterested enquirer. Reading twenty of the actual threads is the fastest way to find out which.

4. Make the follow-up easy to answer

The message.

One short question, with permission to say it is no longer relevant. These contacts are older and cooler, so the message has to ask for very little. Two lines is the right length.

5. Do not restart from the beginning

The practical detail.

Reference what they originally asked about. A message that requires them to re-explain everything gets ignored, and your record already contains the context. Quoting their own words back is the quickest way to re-establish it.

6. Offer a smaller next step

The lowered barrier.

Where the process stopped at a survey or a detailed requirement, offering an indicative range or a shorter first step frequently restarts something that had stalled on effort. The obstacle was rarely the price, because they never saw one.

7. Work the recent ones first

The prioritisation.

Enquiries from the last three months convert far better than ones from last year. Sorting by date before starting makes the exercise worth the time. Work backwards until the responses dry up.

8. Fix the stage that produced them

The permanent improvement.

If most stopped at the same point — an unanswered question, a survey nobody booked, a form that asked too much — that is a process fix worth more than the recovered enquiries.

9. Give the category a status and a rule

The record-keeping.

Not lost, not open forever. A defined status with a review date, so these are worked deliberately rather than accumulating invisibly.

Be careful about contacting people who never really engaged. Somebody who made one enquiry and never responded may not welcome a message months later, and rules on unsolicited contact and on using details for a purpose other than the original one differ by jurisdiction.

Conclusion

Count the enquiries that never reached a quote, because they are usually the largest silent category.

Establish where in the process each one stopped, check honestly whether your own response was the cause, send one short easily answered message that references what they originally wanted, offer a smaller next step where the process stalled on effort, work the most recent ones first, fix the stage that is producing them, and give the category its own status with a review date.