What a quote that takes three days really costs
A slow quote never shows up in a report, yet it costs you contracts every year. Here is how to put a number on it in margin — and what to do about it.
Dmytro Dobronos, Founder of ARVEXO · Published
A customer asks for a quote. The sales rep opens the price list in Excel, checks stock in the ERP and calls the sales director to approve a discount. On day three the quote is ready. The customer replies politely: "Thank you, we've already agreed with another supplier."
This contract won't appear anywhere in your sales report. It wasn't lost — it simply never existed.
Why nobody sees this loss
Reports show the deals that happened. Deals that went to a competitor before you managed to reply look like "customer not interested" in the CRM, or don't show up at all. So the owner hears "the market is tough" rather than "we reply three days slower than the competition".
The most expensive part isn't routine — it's contracts and customers that quietly walk away.
How to calculate it
The formula is simple, and it's worth running on your own numbers:
contracts lost to slow quotes × average contract volume × your margin
An example for a sample distribution company:
- 4 contracts a year went to a competitor who replied the same day;
- the average contract is €400,000 a year;
- the margin is 18%.
4 × €400,000 × 18% = €288,000 in margin a year. The figures are illustrative, but the order of magnitude is typical.
You don't need a survey to find the first number. Take 12 months of request history from the CRM, put the request date next to the date the quote went out, and look at deals closed with the reason "chose another supplier".
What an AI agent changes
The quote agent builds a proposal from current prices and stock in 40 minutes instead of three days. It won't let a discount above the limit through without a manager's approval. The sales rep approves sending it to the customer: the decision stays with a human, the paperwork doesn't.
The rep stops hunting for prices and re-typing data between systems, and spends the time on what they are paid for: negotiating.
Where to start
- Run the formula above on your numbers. If the result is significant, the problem is real.
- Check how long it takes on average from request to quote.
- Find out where the time goes: looking up prices, approving discounts, moving data by hand.
A slow quote is rarely the only loss point. In the diagnostic we calculate all of them from your data and show which one to close first.