Why Faster Print Quotes Win More Jobs (and How to Get There) In commercial printing, the first to quote often wins the job. Today’s customers expect fast, accurate responses and if you can’t deliver,...
Why Faster Print Quotes Win More Jobs (and How to Get There)
In commercial printing, the first to quote often wins the job. Today’s customers expect fast, accurate responses and if you can’t deliver, someone else will.
By accelerating your quoting process, you don’t just improve customer satisfaction. You position your business to grow.
Contents
- Why Speed Matters in Print Quotes
- How Faster Quotes Enhance Customer Experience
- Challenges for Small and Mid-Sized Print Shops
- Let Estimators Focus Where They Add the Most Value
- Empowering More of Your Team to Quote Simple Jobs
- How Technology Helps Accelerate the Quoting Process
- Best Practices for Faster Print Quoting
Why Speed Matters in Print Quotes
In today’s on-demand economy, speed can be the difference between winning and losing work. Research shows that 78% of customers buy from the first company to respond and leads who receive a response within one minute convert at rates up to 391% higher than those who wait (Voiso).
Think of it like ordering takeout. You’re hungry, you know exactly what you want, and you’re ready to buy—but instead of seeing a menu or getting an instant price, you’re told someone will get back to you. Frustrating, right? Most people won’t wait. They’ll place their order elsewhere—and they’re unlikely to return after a poor experience.
The same applies to print quoting. When someone requests a quote for a repeat or commodity-style job, they’re already in buying mode. Delays only create friction—and often push the customer to a competitor.
"Companies that respond first to requests for quotes are often more likely to get the job. If sales reps can do that on the spot while they are at the customer site or on the phone with the customer, it makes us that much more competitive."
Shawn Williams, Premier Press
How Faster Quotes Enhance Customer Experience
Fast, accurate quoting is more than just a convenience. It directly shapes how customers perceive your business. It signals professionalism, efficiency, and reliability from the very first interaction.
- Higher win rates – Being the first to respond often means closing the deal.
- Increased efficiency – Your team spends less time chasing requests and more time producing work.
- Faster turnaround on complex jobs – When routine quotes are automated, your estimators can focus on high-value projects, speeding up those too.
- Improved customer satisfaction – Buyers appreciate businesses that respect their time.
- Repeat business – A smooth quoting process increases the likelihood of return orders.
Challenges for Small and Mid-Sized Print Shops
For many smaller print providers, quoting is a major bottleneck. Estimators often spend a disproportionate amount of time handling small, repetitive jobs - taking focus away from complex, high-value work. This slows the process down for everyone and introduces frustration on both sides of the transaction.
In a competitive market where response time influences customer decisions, these internal delays can translate directly into lost revenue.
Let Estimators Focus Where They Add the Most Value
Not every quote needs the same level of attention. That’s why quoting automation is so impactful. Solutions like Pace, with Easy Quote functionality, help manage common or repeat jobs more efficiently.
Instead of tying up your senior estimators with routine tasks, you can automate those simpler quotes - freeing up expert attention for the more custom or profitable work that really moves the needle. It’s about applying the right level of effort to the right kind of job, without sacrificing speed or accuracy.
Empowering More of Your Team to Quote Simple Jobs
When quoting tools are intuitive and efficient, it becomes easier for other team members, like customer service reps or account managers to generate quotes for straightforward jobs. For small print shops, this can help reduce pressure on estimators and improve overall responsiveness to customer requests.
EasyQuote was specifically designed to support this. With role-based access, admin-defined templates, and a simplified interface, it enables more of your team to quote independently without compromising consistency or control.
This expands quoting capacity and reduces bottlenecks especially valuable for smaller teams that need to stay agile.
How Technology Helps Accelerate the Quoting Process
Technology plays a central role in streamlining quoting. With Easy Quote capabilities inside Pace, teams can leverage guided workflows and simplified user interfaces to create consistent, reliable estimates in less time.
EasyQuote uses the same estimating engine as the full Pace Estimator, ensuring that all quotes are grounded in the same logic and business rules already in use across your shop.
- Admins can set predefined templates for common products (retail signage, brochures, postcards, business cards) so users don’t need to configure jobs from scratch.
- Real-time cost and margin visibility during quote creation helps ensure profitability and smarter pricing decisions.
This not only improves turnaround speed but also reduces manual errors, ensures standard pricing practices, and gives you a repeatable process that scales as your business grows.
The result? A quoting process that moves at the speed your customers expect—without overwhelming your team.
Best Practices for Faster Print Quoting
If you’re ready to speed up your quoting process, here are a few best practices to ensure success:
- Standardize where possible – Identify the types of jobs that can follow a consistent pricing structure.
- Train your team – Ensure staff are comfortable using tools like Pace and understand when to use simplified workflows.
- Integrate with your existing systems – Connect quoting with your MIS, CRM, and job ticketing for smoother handoffs.
- Monitor and refine – Track metrics like quote turnaround time, response rate, and close ratio. Adjust as needed.
- Ask for feedback – Regularly gather input from customers and sales teams to fine-tune your quoting approach.
Closing Thought
Faster quoting isn’t just about speed—it’s about delivering a better customer experience, freeing up your team, and winning more work. By identifying the right tools and workflows, you can streamline your quoting process without sacrificing accuracy or control.
Ready to explore what’s possible? Let’s chat about your goals and how we can support them.
