The unsold-estimate file
What unsold estimates are costing you
Your next chunk of revenue isn't a lead you haven't bought yet. It's already in your system: quotes you wrote, priced and promised, that never booked. This page does the math on that file — and on why quotes die.
Key facts
- Unsold estimates are customers who asked for a price and never booked — the warmest audience a shop owns.
- Most quotes don't die on price; they die in the silence after day one, when nobody follows up.
- A working follow-up sequence is short and capped: a call the next day, another a few days later, a final one inside two weeks — then stop.
- Recovering even 1 in 10 unsold estimates is found money: no ad spend, no lead cost, work that was already sold once.
Where unsold estimates come from
A tech runs a clean call, diagnoses the problem, writes a fair quote — and the customer says the four most expensive words in the trade: “let me think about it.” Sometimes they mean no. Mostly they mean not today: the water heater still heats, the AC still cools, the money went to a car repair instead. The job doesn't get refused. It gets postponed into oblivion. Meanwhile the quote sits in the system, aging, while the equipment it described gets worse.
Quotes die of silence, not price
If price killed quotes, the cheapest shop in town would book every job. What actually happens: the customer gets busy, the quote PDF sinks in their inbox, and the first company to call back when they're ready again gets the work — often the competitor whose ad they see next. A quote is a door left open. Follow-up is walking back through it before someone else does.
The follow-up cadence that works
Short, early, and finished. A call the next day, while the visit is fresh. Another a few days later, at a different time of day. A final attempt inside two weeks — then the quote moves to the seasonal pile and gets one more call when its work comes due. (The pre-season tune-up push is where last fall's unsold furnace estimates come back to life.) Plunger AI runs this sequence inside your calling window, 1 to 5 attempts as you set it, and stops the moment the customer books, replies, or opts out.
What a worked quote file looks like
No quote sits unworked. Each one has a state — booked, bowed out, call scheduled, due again in spring — and the record to prove it: the calls, the summary, the recording. Your reports show bookings next to the calls that made them, so the value of the file stops being a guess at the end of every month.
The numbers, worked
Say your shop writes 40 quotes a month at an $1,800 average and books half — a healthy close rate. That's 20 unsold estimates a month, 240 a year, $432,000 of quoted work sitting in the file. Work the file at a cautious 10% recovery and that's 24 jobs — $43,200 a year — from customers who already asked you once.
Your next $30,000 is already in your list. It just needs the calls made.
Questions
How old is too old for an unsold estimate?
A quote from this season is warm. A quote from last year is still a customer who raised their hand, heard your price, and knows your name — the equipment they were quoted on is a year older and a year closer to failing. Age weakens a quote. Silence kills it. The oldest quotes get one respectful call, not a sequence.
Does following up on unsold estimates annoy people?
A nagging sequence would. A capped one doesn't: a few attempts inside business hours, naming their own quote, stopping the moment they reply — and stopping for good when they ask. People object to being spammed or pressured, and the sequence is built against both.
What if the customer already got the work done elsewhere?
Then the call found out in thirty seconds, the record is updated, and the customer is in the right place for the next job — their equipment now ages on your calendar too. A “no, it's done” is still a worked list; an uncalled quote is just a rumor.
Do we need to discount to revive an unsold estimate?
Usually no. Most unsold estimates didn't die on price — they died on timing, and a call that arrives when the customer is ready again closes at the quoted price. Lead with the work being due, not with a coupon.
Who writes the follow-up script?
You approve it before a single call. The script is built from your answers — your services, your pricing, your rules — and you hear a test call in your portal and take changes until you sign off.
Free first
See your number before you pay for anything
Run the free Revenue Audit on your real numbers — past customers, unsold estimates, missed calls. Takes about a minute — no email up front, no card. The audit shows it. The agent collects it.