Every trade gets the same question on the phone: can you give me a rough idea of the price? The honest answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no, and knowing which is a skill. Quote too much over the phone and you eat the difference when the job is not what they described. Insist on a site visit for everything and you lose the small jobs to whoever gave a number.
What can be quoted over the phone
Anything on your price list. A standard call-out, a tap replacement, a power point, a standard split system install, a service. These are jobs you have done fifty times, where the variables are small and the price is fixed. If the customer can describe it and send a photo, you can quote it.
Anything where the unknowns are priced in. If your note says the price covers a standard install and anything unusual is quoted on site, you can give the standard price with confidence.
Anything small enough that a miss does not matter. If the job is $300 and it turns out to be $400 of work, you learn something and move on. Do not drive across town to look at a $300 job.
What needs a site visit
Anything where the price depends on what you will find. Switchboards, roofs, drains, anything behind a wall or under a floor.
Anything measured. Decks, slabs, painting, tiling, fencing. The customer's measurement is wrong more often than it is right, and it is wrong in their favour.
Anything over a few thousand dollars. The cost of a visit is small against the cost of a wrong quote, and customers spending that much expect to meet you.
Anything where access is a cost. You cannot see the stairs, the gate or the overhead line on the phone.
Quoting on the phone without getting caught
Ask for a photo. Nearly everyone can send one in a minute, and a photo turns a description into information. Ask the questions your trade knows to ask: how old is the house, what is the wall made of, where is the meter box, is there a side gate.
Give a range or a from price, not a single number, unless the job is really standard. From $650 for a standard back-to-back install, more if the outdoor unit is away from the wall. The customer hears a number, which is what they wanted; you have left room.
Then put it in writing straight away. A phone number is a memory; a quote is a record. Paste what they told you into an enquiry, build the quote from your price list with the standard lines, and write in the note what the price assumes and what would change it. Send it before the call is cold. If the job turns out different on the day, the note is your variation clause.
Quoting on site without wasting the visit
Arrive with the price list in your head or on your phone. Most of the lines on a site quote are standard; the visit is for the two or three that are not.
Photograph and measure everything that drives the price before you talk about money. Then build the quote in the ute before you drive off. The quote that arrives while the customer is still thinking about you is the one that gets accepted. The quote that arrives on Thursday night is one of three.
If you cannot price it on site, say when you will. Then do it that day. A site visit that turns into a quote a week later has wasted the thing a site visit buys you, which is being first.
The hybrid
Many jobs are a phone quote with a condition. Give the standard price from the list, send it in writing with a note that says it assumes what the customer described, and visit only if they accept. The acceptance tells you the price is in range before you spend the fuel. If the site visit shows something different, you send a variation and they accept or decline that too.
This is how most small and medium jobs should go, and it is where a fast quoting tool earns its keep. The phone call ends, the enquiry is pasted in, the quote is built from the list, the note carries the assumptions, and the customer has an accept button before they have rung the next person.
Charging for the visit
For large jobs, a free site visit is normal and the cost is in the price. For small jobs where the customer wants a visit before committing, charge the call-out fee for it and say it is credited if they go ahead. A customer who will not pay for a visit on a small job did not want you; they wanted a free opinion.
The decision, in short
- On the price list and small: quote on the phone, in writing, today.
- Measured, hidden or large: visit, photograph, measure, quote in the ute.
- In between: standard price from the list with assumptions in the note, visit on acceptance.
Whichever path, the quote goes out the same day, in writing, with the conditions attached and a way to say yes. That is the part that wins the job. Where you were standing when you priced it matters much less.