# Estimate and proposal follow-up

Version: 1.0.0

Keep open estimates moving with agreed follow-up dates and recorded decisions.

## Purpose

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

## Prerequisites

- 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.

## Responsible roles

- **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.

## Steps

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. **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. **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. **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 Retire the superseded version.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. **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. **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.

## Exceptions

- 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 placeholders to your approved business process. These are examples for review, not messages sent by MagicAiFlow.

### Receipt and questions

> Hi [first name], did the estimate for [brief service description] reach you? I'm happy to clarify the scope or next steps. When would you like me to follow up?

### Decision checkpoint

> Hi [first name], I'm checking in on estimate [reference]. Would you like to move forward, revisit the scope, or pause for now? I'll update our next step based on what works for you.

## 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.

## Related guides

- [Missed-call follow-up](https://www.magicaiflow.com/resources/workflows/missed-call-follow-up)
- [Sale-to-delivery handoff](https://www.magicaiflow.com/resources/workflows/sale-to-delivery-handoff)

## Next step

[Explore the business checks](https://www.magicaiflow.com/resources/business-checks). Public guides are free; private findings require sign-in. Checks evaluate supplied information, not independently verified business records, and do not send messages or change customer systems.

[Prompt Library](https://www.magicaiflow.com/dashboard/prompts) and [SOP Library](https://www.magicaiflow.com/dashboard/sops) use existing sign-in and access rules.