How long do you spend?

[Corabar Entertainment]

Just curious as to whether other people spend as much time as I do on a quote, or whether it's a quick reply for you (I'm talking about on-line here).

When I get a request for a quote, as well as entering it on my system, I spend a bit of time looking at what they've said. then doing a bit of research (eg looking up details of a venue - not just on their website, but other sites as well, and reminding myself of details of venues we know, and even phoning the venue if there's a reason). I might put together suggestions based on things they've said / ask additional questions, find photos to illustrate a salient point, and certainly mention details about their venue.

All of this personalised information, I incorporate in to an out-line template I have, and obviously I prepare a quote as well.

All-in-all, I can easily spend an hour doing a quote (some times more, and fewer times - a little less), and (like everyone) I may never hear from them again.

But, I am curious to know how long other people spend doing their quotes.

[funkymook]

I'm pretty much the same as you Angela, but I don't have a template so every reply is started from scratch.

I've experimented with a more generic response but its just not for me.

[Excalibur]

How long? It varies, some can be as little as filling in the details on my reply template, and pressing send. Others involve much more effort, but rarely approach an hour. I'd say my longer ones amount to about fifteen minutes, maybe. Sometimes time spent is repaid, as I rang a prospective client to get enough details to give an accurate quote, had a long conversation, and sent a detailed quote from scratch. That one paid for itself, because she booked.

[Leicester Ben]

For a disco / wedding enquiry it dosent take us long, about 10 minutes to enter the clients details on our booking system, generate a quote and send it if as a PDF.

We get about 15 quotes a day and so have to be pretty streamlined in firing them out and moving onto the next one. The DJ quotes are by far the easiest, for the bigger jobs it can involve site visits, a meeting and only then can we send a quote.

Templates are great and we customise them for every client.

[Dynamic Entertainment]

If its a venue that i know, and a straight forward "asking for a price" then it takes about 20 minutes to do the reply. If theres a lot of questions asked (or to be asked), or a venue I dont know then your looking at up to an hour.

As with ben, the DJ ones are usually easy, its the uplighting jobs that take more time, especially if I dont know the venue.

[musicologydisco]

My prices are the same, be it wedding, party or pub so really easy and quick for me . Although I am rarely asked for a quote as my prices are clear on my website. As I have a full time job it works for me.

[DeckstarDeluxe]

Depends on their requirements, anything from 5 minutes to several emails and a site visit.... Most I'd say are 5-10 minutes each as they are venues I've done before

[surround sounds]

Same as Ben really. We get between 10 - 15 enquiries a day. I would say it takes around 15 Mins for each quote i send. I do use a detailed template but if there are questions the customer as asked, I put it in to my Quote..I do look on Venues websites if i am not sure on the venue, to help sometimes with quotes etc

[JAMdisco]

If it's a generic enquiry (i.e. from a forum/website I'm a member on) I usually use my template and change the details accordingly so usually amounts to around 5 minutes.

If it's a direct enquiry from my website or direct to my email address then I usually start the reply from scratch - this can take 10-15 minutes depending on how much detail they want.

It's very rare for me to get an enquiry at a venue I haven't been to before but if I am unfamiliar with the venue I will state this in my reply.

I am in a fortunate enough position to choose which bookings to reply too, I tend to stay away from teen birthday's unless it's a 13-15 year old disco - that's not really my market anymore but that's not what this thread is about so I'll shut up now before I get told to lol

[Shakermaker Promotions]

I'm the same as most of the above in that I have a ready made template that I edit so it doesn't take that long at all really.
I've had a couple of customers who booked me after receiving the quote tell me that it had all of the information they needed and I had answered all of their questions in advance.

On another note though, it must be that time of year again as I've had a couple of suspect enquiries over the past week. I treat them all the same even though I can't prove it. The reason I mention it here is because if I didn't have a ready made template and I was creating individual quotes every time I received an enquiry, I'd be pretty narked. Like I said, it doesn't take long anyway so it's not that much of a problem.