You sent the estimate three days ago and heard nothing. The customer is not ignoring you. They are busy, they are comparing, or they have a question they have not got round to asking. Most estimates that go quiet are won or lost in the follow-up, and most small service businesses follow up late, or once, or not at all, because nobody owns the next touch.
This post answers the two questions contractors and cleaners ask on every trade forum: how long should I wait, and what should I say? Then it shows how Tensor Autonomous sends those follow-ups for you, after you have approved each one, and keeps the log you never had time to keep.
How long to wait
A simple cadence works for estimates between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars:
- Day 3: a short check-in. Ask whether they have questions, and make it easy to say yes.
- Day 7: a nudge with one new reason to decide: your next open dates, a detail you can clarify, or a reminder that the price holds until a date.
- Day 14: a polite close. Ask whether they went another way, and leave the door open.
Three touches over two weeks is enough. More than that reads as pressure. If the customer asked for time, start the clock from the date they named, not from the day you sent the quote.
Stop the sequence the moment they accept, decline, ask you not to contact them, or ask for a change. A follow-up sent after a decline is the one message people remember.
What to say on day 3
Keep it to four lines. Name the job, not "your recent inquiry".
Subject: Your estimate for the fence repair
Hi Dana, I wanted to check that the estimate for the fence repair reached you and whether anything in it needs explaining. If you would like to go ahead, reply here and I will hold a date for you. If not, no problem at all.
Do not add a discount on day 3. It teaches customers to wait for one.
What to say on day 7
Give them one new fact. The easiest is availability.
Subject: Dates for the fence repair
Hi Dana, following up on the estimate from last week. We have openings on Tuesday the 14th and Friday the 17th if either suits you. The price in the estimate holds until the end of the month. Happy to answer any questions.
If the customer raised a question on day 3, answer it here and skip the availability line.
What to say on day 14
Subject: Closing the loop on the fence repair
Hi Dana, I will assume the timing is not right for now and close this estimate on our side. If anything changes, reply to this email and we will pick it straight back up.
Mark the estimate closed in your tracker and move on. About one in ten of these gets a reply within the week.
Keep a sheet, not a memory
A follow-up routine only works if one place says where every estimate stands. A Google Sheet with eight columns is enough:
| Date sent | Customer | Job | Amount | Status | Follow-up drafted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2 | Dana Kim | Fence repair | $1,840 | Sent |
Status stays Sent until the customer answers; then you change it. Those are the columns Tensor's starter expects, so keep them if you want it to take the sheet over.
The sheet is the thing that gets neglected first when the week fills up. That is the part worth handing to Tensor.
Tensor does this after your approval
The Library's Follow up on open quotes starter does the part that slips: it drafts a friendly follow-up for each quote with no answer after 5 days, and notes it in your quotes sheet. You connect the Gmail account you send estimates from and the sheet you track them in, and Tensor:
- Reads your quotes sheet when you run it ("Follow up on my open quotes today"), or on a schedule you set, say weekdays at 8am, and finds the rows with status Sent, a date sent 5 or more days ago and an empty Follow-up drafted cell.
- Drafts the follow-up for each one in your words, with the job's details filled in, as a draft in your Gmail. Nothing is sent by Tensor; you read each draft, edit it if you like, and send it. Each run's drafts and sheet changes wait for your approval unless you have set limits that cover them; sending never runs without asking. The starter follows up once; the cadence above is advice for the sends you make yourself, and once the starter is yours you can change its timing to 3 days or 7.
- Fills in the Follow-up drafted cell on that quote's row, and skips the row next time, so no customer is chased twice by the same starter.
- Every run leaves a receipt: the sheet it read, the drafts it made and the rows it wrote, read back and compared.
Tensor stops and asks when a quote in the sheet does not match what it finds in your mail, and it never changes a price or offers a date on its own.
Tensor does not write the estimate, set the price, or promise a date on its own. Your estimating or quoting tool keeps those jobs. Tensor picks up where that tool goes quiet: the follow-up, the tracker and the record.
Today this works with Gmail and Google Sheets. Microsoft 365 is coming later, so if your estimates go out from Outlook, this is not ready for you yet. Replies still land in your inbox as they always did; logging them is yours, or a responsibility you describe in your own words.
Where to start
- Tensor for home services and cleaning lists the starters for your trade, including Follow up on open quotes.
- Try it live: log an order, book an appointment or answer a rental inquiry on sample data, with your approval before it changes anything.
- Plans from $149 a month: Starter, Operator and Operations Team.
Related reading
- Lead follow-up that never goes quiet
- Follow-up automation after customer calls
- Google Sheets automation for CRM and records
See it in a demo
Watch Tensor do a sample task (log an order, book an appointment or answer a rental inquiry), wait for your approval and hand you the receipt.