The Dying Art of Quotations: Incorporating Technology – Even AI – Without Losing the Human Connection

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Depending on how long you’ve been in the industry, you have either been, or heard the tales of, the salesperson who went to his customer’s offices, sat for hours with huge sets of plans, and took off jobs to quote for those customers, and then went home, combed through catalogs and price books, and prepared a quote that was probably originally hand delivered, later faxed, and eventually, emailed to a customer.

 The advent of digital plans and digital storage changed that process, eventually allowing a full set of job documents to be sent via a link or links in an email for quoting. Then, estimating software came along to help contractors estimate jobs and organize the documents related to the jobs, and on the manufacturing/rep and even wholesale side, work began with software developers to try to find a way to modernize the process further with programs that could read plans and help to create quotes based on the schedules.

Preparing a quotation, if you have never done one, is very much like putting together a puzzle for which you likely do not have a complete picture. Each part of the documentation adds a piece to the overall picture, and as with most puzzles, the building of the puzzle requires a great deal of knowledge, skill, intuition, and patience. Building a quotation, like building a puzzle, is an art. The people who prepare quotes spend years learning not only about the products that they put on their quotations, but also about what else is connected to those items, what could be used in place of what is specified, etc. Just like so many other forms of art, AI is starting to take root and is beginning to replace some of the human connection to the art of quotations, but the question remains, as it does for so many other things: Could AI truly be able to fully replace humans in this process?

As things currently stand, the process still requires quotations developers/specialists to continue to review project documents and AI Quotes to ensure accuracy. Not just to confirm the quote produced by AI is correct, but also that the full scope of what is specified, rather than just the scheduled models, is being offered on the quote. The schedule alone often does not tell the whole story; models are not always fully specified by model numbers written on the schedules.

Descriptions in the schedule often add detail, and specifications may contain additional details as well. If you are not using the specified model, the “cross” is sometimes not a “this or that”; rather, the cross is subjective based on what is important for that specific instance (which isn’t always clear without considering other factors). Simply, the human component is still important to the process.  It stands to reason with the advances in AI technology that AI will be an effective tool to help streamline the quotations process. We are already seeing some of this now, as more AI tools are coming to market with this specific purpose. How this technology grows and shifts to address the additional requirements of preparing a full job quote will be key in determining how the human component evolves.

This leads us to an important question: “How could the time that was previously spent preparing quotes be repurposed?” There are myriad options for the people who are familiar with the job/quoting processes to help grow businesses and relationships, just some of which we have seen in my experience: becoming an active (or more active) participant in follow up on the quotes they are sending, talking more regularly with customers to better understand their processes and to learn how to be more a more effective partner, or even spending time outside of the office with customers to help grow the overall relationship. It will be interesting to see how our roles change and evolve as AI tools continue to advance and change the landscape of current quoting processes.

So, will AI technology fully replace humans in the job quotations process? I do not think that we will be able to fully remove humans from the process. That said, can we allow technology to help make the process more effective, efficient, and help us potentially capture more business by allowing our role to evolve through the time that we reclaim by using these tools? I think that is the best possible outcome for all involved.

By Tia Garriss, The Joyce Agency, Inc

Tia Garriss is the Quotations and Project Management Team Manager/PM NOVA/DC Metro, The Joyce Agency, Inc.