Estimate and proposal follow-up

Purpose

Make the next step on each estimate visible without pressuring prospects or treating silence as a purchase decision.

Before you start

• A current estimate or proposal with scope, price, assumptions, validity period, and a version identifier.
• One shared list of open estimates with owner, sent date, next action, due date, and outcome.
• A follow-up cadence and closing rule agreed by the sales owner; adjust dates to the customer's stated timeline.

Who owns the work

Estimate owner

Confirms delivery, follows up, and maintains the next action.

Scope or pricing approver

Authorizes changes, discounts, and revised promises.

Delivery lead

Checks capacity before an accepted estimate becomes a delivery commitment.

The process, step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: Confirm the proposal is ready

   Check scope, exclusions, price, decision steps, and validity period. Store the approved version so later changes are visible.

2. 2

   Step 2: Send and record the next step

   Send through the agreed channel. Record a responsible owner and a specific follow-up date. Ask when the customer expects to review it.

3. 3

   Step 3: Check receipt and questions

   At the agreed time, ask whether the estimate arrived and whether anything needs clarification. Record a question as a next action with an owner, not as a rejection.

4. 4

   Step 4: Resolve changes before resending

   Route scope, price, or delivery-date changes to the approver. Issue a new version and identify what changed. Retire the superseded version.

5. 5

   Step 5: Follow the customer's decision timeline

   Use the agreed cadence, leaving a next action and due date after each attempt. If there is no reply, stop at the defined final attempt and mark the outcome as no decision.

6. 6

   Step 6: Record the decision and hand off

   Record accepted, declined, deferred, expired, or no decision. For acceptance, confirm required agreement and payment steps through existing systems, then prepare the sale-to-delivery handoff.

When the usual process does not fit

• A price or scope dispute requires review; do not silently edit an already accepted proposal.
• An expired estimate needs revalidation before the team promises the original terms.
• If a customer asks for a pause, record the requested review date and suspend the ordinary cadence.
• An acceptance does not prove delivery capacity, payment receipt, or readiness to start.

Example messages

Adapt the placeholders and review each message for your situation. MagicAiFlow does not send these messages or change customer records.

Measurement checklist

• Count open estimates with a current owner, next action, and due date.
• Review overdue follow-ups separately from estimates awaiting a customer-agreed decision date.
• Track decisions by sent cohort and reporting period; keep deferred and no-decision outcomes visible.
• Measure time from acceptance to delivery acceptance, without attributing revenue uplift to follow-up alone.