5 tips to optimise quotation follow-up in your print company

22 October 2024

Offerteopvolging

Creating flawless and fast print quotes every day proves to be a challenge for many sign and print companies. Many still do this themselves manually in Word or Excel. How far do you go in detail regarding your prices? How flexible are you towards your customers? And how efficiently do you follow up on quotations? Just think about the specific requirements of your customers, the choices you have to make between fixed and variable price structures, managing price agreements with customers and following up on price calculations and pending quotes... In this article, we share 5 tips to make your quotation follow-up run more smoothly.

Understand your customer's needs

The print industry is all about customisation: your client is really looking for someone to make their dream a reality. Therefore, before you send out a print quote, you need to have a deep understanding of your customer's specific needs. It's best to ask these kinds of questions first:

  • What does the customer expect in terms of type of paper, format, edition and finishing?
  • By when does the print job need to be ready?
  • What packaging and delivery does the customer want?
  • What special conditions do you still need to meet?

By asking these questions first, you will better understand exactly what the customer needs. That way, you will create a customised quotation that perfectly matches their wishes and requirements. This way, you avoid investing time and resources in quotations that may not be relevant to the customer and therefore yield little.

Choose strategically: what is the production cost and production time?

Creating print quotes is a time-consuming task, especially if you are still doing it in Word or Excel. It starts with choosing between a fixed or variable price. If you choose a fixed amount, this is independent of the print job's production time and any unforeseen costs. This way, customers know exactly what to expect.

But do you opt for a variable price? Then it is based on many factors such as the number of hours worked, the materials used per project, ... Do you know what it costs to produce this print job? Or how much the raw materials cost? Once this is known, it is very easy to say you want x-number of % margin on it. But if you don't know the production cost, you risk losing profit without realising it.

An ERP software like MultiPress can help you calculate that production cost and production time. This is important because if you don't know this, you are dealing with poor machine utilisation. And those machines cost tons of money, so every second of production downtime represents a huge problem. In short, with a business software such as MultiPress, you not only save a lot of time, but also increase your profitability and strengthen your company's competitive position.

Make clear price agreements with your customer

Good agreements make good friends. That is why it is important to make clear price agreements with your customers. For print businesses, this is already very difficult, because every print order is unique. Each project requires specific settings, materials and processes. Managing them is sometimes a challenge, but MultiPress helps you do this easily and efficiently. Moreover, you can easily calculate the integral price per order with the calculation module. This has several advantages:

  • You have an overview of all info (cost price, product data and sales price).
  • You manage price agreements with several customers efficiently, saving you a lot of time.
  • The actual cost price and relevant production data are immediately available in addition to the agreed selling price.

Create an up-to-date overview of all price calculations

For any sales team, it is imperative that quotations are closely monitored. A clear overview with up-to-date information on price calculations and current quotations is therefore crucial. And by using quotation management, you have this overview at your fingertips, at any time and without fuss:

  • All quotation information is immediately available, without the help of separate software.
  • The chance of errors is much smaller than when creating a quotation in Word or Excel, as you manage all information centrally.
  • Adjustments, additions and comments are easy to enter. Moreover, detailed information is also displayed clearly.
  • You can quickly and easily create an overview of all open quotations. You then filter these by specifications to plan further specific follow-ups.

An integrated approach with MultiPress enables your print business not only to draw up quotations effectively, but also to manage and optimise the entire process efficiently.

Know the right address details: essential for effective quotations

Knowing the correct address details is crucial when creating print quotes. With the MultiPress integration with Creditsafe, a leading supplier of business information, you always have access to up-to-date and accurate address details of your customers. This allows you to create quotations reliably and professionally.

Moreover, you will receive a warning before you engage with a customer who is actually virtually bankrupt. This not only saves you time and effort, it also protects your print business from potential financial risks. And let's face it, do you want to spend time creating a quotation that might not meet the payment terms?

So quote follow-up is a complex process, but with the right tools and strategies, you optimise this whole process and strengthen your competitive position.