Quote response time calculator.
What slow and unanswered quote requests cost you in a year, and what each point of win rate is worth.
Your own numbers
What 2,241 US companies actually did
Each of 2,241 US companies was sent one web-generated inquiry and the time to response was measured, in an audit published in Harvard Business Review. The distribution below is what came back. Nearly a quarter of them never replied at all, so simply answering every request politely on the same day puts a company ahead of nearly half the field before anything else is done.
| Time to first response | Share of companies | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Within 1 hour | 37% | This was the fastest group in the audit. |
| 1 to 24 hours | 16% | These companies replied the same day, after the first hour. |
| More than 24 hours | 24% | These companies replied the next day or later. |
| Never responded | 23% | No reply at all was recorded from these companies. |
Why there is no automatic decay curve here
Most tools of this kind apply a multiplier: reply in five minutes and you are some number of times more likely to win. Those multipliers trace back to studies of qualifying online sales leads, measured under their own conditions, in their own industries, with their own definition of a qualified lead.
A manufacturer quoting a machined part against three other shops is a different situation. The buyer is collecting quotes over a week and choosing on price, capability, and confidence, so the first five minutes rarely decide it. Speed matters in that process, but no published study measures how much it raises a manufacturer's odds.
So this page gives you the benchmark, the arithmetic of what an improvement is worth, and a field where you supply the size of the improvement yourself. To put a measured number in that field, run the test described below for a quarter and track the results.
A slow response usually starts with the quote path, and the sales team is rarely the cause. When a request arrives as a name, an email, and a comment box, somebody has to write back before anyone can price anything. That is the case for a quote path that accepts a drawing. What a saved request is worth across the whole relationship is a separate figure, and the lifetime value of one customer is where that number comes from.
The three fixes, in order of cost
- Make sure every request reaches a person. Give the inbox one named owner and one named backup, and copy every request to a second address. It costs nothing, and it is the fix for the unanswered figure above.
- Send a two-line acknowledgment inside an hour. Confirm the drawing arrived, name who is quoting it, and give a date. It is a change in habit, and it costs nothing to buy.
- Ask on the form for what you need to quote. That means quantity, material, target date, and the drawing. A request that arrives complete can be quoted the same day, without a three-email exchange first.
Questions owners ask about response time
How fast should a manufacturer respond to a quote request?
A manufacturer should reply to a quote request the same working day, and ideally within an hour. An audit of 2,241 US companies, each sent one web-generated inquiry, found 37% responded within an hour, 24% took more than a day, and 23% never responded at all. A reply within the hour puts you in the fastest group, and even a same-day reply puts you ahead of nearly half the companies audited.
Does responding faster actually win more work?
Replying faster does help you win work, though nobody has measured by how much for a manufacturer. The widely quoted multipliers come from a study of qualifying online sales leads under its own conditions, and they do not transfer cleanly to a shop quoting a part against three others. So this page shows what a better win rate is worth at your volumes, and leaves the size of that improvement to you.
What is a normal number of unanswered quote requests?
The normal number is higher than most owners expect. In the published audit, 23% of the 2,241 companies never responded to the test inquiry at all. The causes are usually ordinary: the form goes to an inbox nobody owns, a spam filter catches it, it still routes to someone who left, or it arrives during a vacation with nobody covering. Testing your own form costs nothing, and it takes about ten minutes.
How do I test my own response time?
Send yourself a quote request through your own form on a Friday afternoon, from an address nobody recognizes, with a plausible part and quantity. Time how long the reply takes, then do the same from a phone. Repeat it every quarter. The whole test takes about ten minutes, and it finds more problems than any analytics dashboard.
What is one point of win rate worth?
At the volumes on this page, one point of win rate is worth $6,998 of gross profit a year. That is the most useful figure here, because it turns a discussion about process into a number. Win rate is also the cheapest of the three levers to move, since it costs attention more than money, and it can change this month.
What should the first reply actually say?
The first reply should confirm you have the drawing, name the person quoting it, and give a date by which the quote will arrive. Two lines are enough. A buyer chasing three suppliers is deciding who is organized, and a short reply within the hour beats a polished quote on Thursday from somebody who said nothing on Monday.
Who made it, and what it does not do
This tool was written by Shopfloor Agency's lead engineer, who holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and builds websites for US manufacturers. It runs entirely in your browser.
The unanswered-request figure and the value of a point of win rate are exact arithmetic on your own numbers. The improvement figure is entirely your assumption, because no published study measures how much faster quoting raises win rate for a US machine shop. The benchmark comes from an audit of 2,241 US companies across all industries, each sent one web-generated inquiry, so it describes businesses in general and manufacturers only as part of that group.
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