Vendor Quote Times

[Bigdawg]

How long do you expect it to take for a vendor to get back with you on a quote?

Is it really unreasonable to request a materials quote same day when you call first thing in the morning? How long do you expect to wait for subcontractor quotes such as oversize printing or channel letters or gemini?

On the flip side, how long does your shop take to get a quote out to a customer for jobs you need to outsource?

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

Most of my suppliers can give a quote for "raw" materials instantly over the phone. I usually only have to wait if I need a quote on an assembled product. Even then they normally get back to me within 24 hours.

I try to get most of my proposals out in 3-5 days. We mostly deal with channel letters, monuments, and pylon signs though. A proposal generally includes a drawing.

For "quickie" sign work, and digital/vinyl, I can usually generate a quote instantly via GraphixCalc.

 

[Pat Whatley]

If I call in the morning looking for a quote on standard items I expect a quote within a few hours. Anything completely out of the ordinary I'll look for it the next day.

I try to get all of my customer quotes to them the same day, if there's a problem with it that keeps me from doing that I'll call and explain.

The problem lately has been dealing with a couple of companies I outsource are taking as long as week to get back to me with a price. For the most part, though, most of my suppliers are pretty good about qiving me quotes within a couple of hours if they can't do it instantly.

 

[Bigdawg]

If I call in the morning looking for a quote on standard items I expect a quote within a few hours. Anything completely out of the ordinary I'll look for it the next day.

I try to get all of my customer quotes to them the same day, if there's a problem with it that keeps me from doing that I'll call and explain.

The problem lately has been dealing with a couple of companies I outsource are taking as long as week to get back to me with a price. For the most part, though, most of my suppliers are pretty good about qiving me quotes within a couple of hours if they can't do it instantly.

That's my problem. My customers expect quotes for even the monument signs or channel letters within 3-5 business days max. Just trying to get a feel for where others stand.

We get regular run-of-the-mill stuff quotes out immediately (pretty much), but try to do no more than 3 business days on the big ones - but if my vendors don't cooperate that makes it tough.

 

[Rick]

Depends on the complexity of a monument sign. I put larger jobs together for various clients and I sometimes get 3-5 days for sign shop/vendors, on larger jobs, I set a deadline (7-10 working days) and I get a few who push the deadline.

 

[Pat Whatley]

My biggest pain is a fairly local pan face supplier. Twice now I've gotten in faces from out of state, lettered them and installed them BEFORE the local people even got their quote faxed to me. I'm not talking complex here....just a simple set of 3' x 10' pan faces.

 

[Gene@mpls]

I'm afraid that this may be the new reality- everyone laid off personnel
and is reluctant to hire- just flog the remaining help to try to keep up.
And this goes many layers deep- their suppliers did the same thing. This
is going to take some time to correct- if ever. We did the same thing-
and it is about to put me in a deep dark hole where I may finally get some
rest. We finally hired a very good person- at the cost of my
probably not being paid for yet another year.
Fortunately I am independently wealthy:Big Laugh.

 

[AUTO-FX]

i recently tried to get a quote for a 1 off large fabric backdrop banner, hit the merchant members here, and only one place got back to me the same day. one place took a couple days, one place took TWO seperate email requests to get a quote about a week later. i was really surprised, but I guess you're right Gene- everyones running very lean.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Everybody is running lean. Some of the people that I deal with when it comes to custom vehicle tuning are taking forever to email programs to people. It would normally take them 24 hrs to turn around and email a program, not it seems like it takes a couple of emails and a phone call to get them going.

Problem is even if a vendor has been good to you up until now, people tend to remember the bad especially if the bad is the more recent.