The short answer: five touches in about three weeks, then ask to close the file
Text the day the estimate goes out. Check in two or three days later. Call near the end of the first week with other ways to do the job. Mention your schedule only if it's really filling. Around day 21 to 30, ask whether to close the file. Stop the moment they answer, say no, or ask you to stop, and then write down whether you won or lost, and why.
This page starts with the estimate already in their inbox. The steps before it each have their own guide: writing the estimate and the price book behind it, the first reply to a brand-new inquiry, and the texts for calls you miss.
From the day it goes out to the close-out text
The days aren't magic. The first two touches land while they're still comparing bids, the options touch comes after they've reacted to the price, and the close-out lines up with the date your price expires, if your estimates carry one.
| Touch | When | Channel | What it says | Goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Sent | Same day | Text, plus the estimate by email | It’s sent, which job, how long the price holds | Confirm it arrived |
| 2 · Check-in | Day 2 or 3 | Text | Did you look? Points to what they asked about at the visit | Surface the unasked question |
| 3 · Options | Day 6 to 8 | Call, then email | A smaller scope, another material, or the work in phases | A yes that fits the budget |
| 4 · Calendar | Day 12 to 14 | Text | Your next open start, only if it’s true. Otherwise skip it | A real reason to decide |
| 5 · Close-out | Day 21 to 30 | Text | Should I close this file, or check back later? | A yes, a no, or a date |
| After | When they decide | Text or email | The start date, or one question about why they passed | Start right, or learn why |
The stop rule
Stop the moment they reply (a person takes it from there), say no, say “not now” (set one check-back date), or opt out. After the close-out, send nothing more unless they asked you to check back.
Seven messages to copy, edit, and send
Written with a residential job in mind, say a roofer in Matthews quoting a replacement. Swap the brackets and cut anything you wouldn't say to the customer's face.
Touch 1 · text
The estimate just went out
Confirms it arrived (an emailed PDF can land in spam) and names the job. The first text says who you are and how to stop.
Touch 2 · text
The check-in
One question, pointed at what they cared about at the visit. It shows you listened.
Touch 3 · call, then email
Other ways to do the job
Silence after a big number can mean the total. Options let them say yes without haggling, and you pick the trade-offs instead of cutting your price. Call first, then send this so they have it in writing.
Touch 4 · text
The schedule is filling (only if it's true)
Only if your calendar really looks like that. A made-up deadline gets caught the day they call back and you can start Monday.
Touch 5 · text
Should I close this file?
The easiest message to answer, because no is acceptable. Either way you get a status instead of a maybe.
After · text or email
They said yes
The date, who’s coming, and how to reach you, from the same person who sent the estimate.
After · text
They went another way
One easy question, and no second pitch. The answer goes in your lost-reason column.
Small habits that get a reply
Pushy is mostly the shape of each message, more than how many you send.
- Name the job and the street. A customer with three estimates needs to know which one is yours.
- Ask one question per message. Ask two and you’ll get one answer, or none.
- Make replying cheap: yes or no, pick one of three, or “reply right here.”
- Send from the number they already know, and sign your name.
- No fake urgency. If a supplier really is raising prices, say which material and when.
Before you text a customer about a quote
Texts get read fast, which makes them easy to overdo. This is general guidance, not legal advice; check your own situation with counsel.
- 01Text people who asked for the estimate, about that estimate. The CTIA messaging guidelines expect customers to agree to texts for a specific purpose, out loud, on a form, or by text, and Twilio's messaging policy limits consent to the subject it was given for. At the visit, ask “OK if I text you about the estimate?”
- 02Say who you are and how to stop. Twilio's policy, for one, requires the first message to name the sender and include wording like “Reply STOP to unsubscribe.”
- 03When someone opts out, stop. CTIA says to honor plain requests like “please stop texting me,” then send one confirmation and nothing after it.
- 04Leave the coupon out. CTIA notes a coupon code can turn an informational text into a promotional one, and it expects written consent before promotional texts.
Track sent, won, lost, and the reason why
Three numbers a month tell you whether follow-up works: estimates sent, won, and lost. Close rate is won divided by sent. One spreadsheet row per estimate is enough: date, customer, job, amount, status, and lost reason. If your field software marks estimates approved or declined, you have the first three; if it doesn't record why, add the reason as a tag.
The lost reason is the column that pays. Keep the choices short:
- Price. If it clusters on one kind of job, fix the estimate (options, a smaller first phase), not the follow-up.
- Timing. Set one check-back date and keep it.
- Went with someone else. Ask who. Over a season you’ll see who you lose to, and on what work.
- Decided not to do it. Count it so it doesn’t hide inside price.
- Never heard back. If this is the biggest pile, the follow-up is the problem.
Also note how long each estimate took to decide. If most wins come back inside two weeks, a day-21 close-out fits. If your big jobs take six weeks, stretch the cadence for those.
What Jobber, Housecall Pro, and ServiceTitan already do
The follow-up timer may already be in your plan. Turn it on and rewrite its messages before you buy another tool. This is what each vendor's help docs say as of October 2026.
Jobber
Quote follow-ups, on the Connect plan and up, send up to two reminders for quotes still awaiting a response, up to 90 days out, the same way the quote went (text or email), in wording you can edit. A customer only gets them if “outstanding quote follow-ups” is on in their communication settings. Another automation archives quotes left waiting.
Housecall Pro
Pipeline's estimate automations resend the estimate at three follow-up stages on days you set, by email or text to match how it was sent, and can mark it declined after the third. On Hold pauses them. You can edit the messages, but with Smart Recommendations on, not the timing. Check that your account has Pipeline.
ServiceTitan
Unsold estimates land on the Follow Up screen as opportunities, with good, better, and best grouped as one, and you log each call there. Marketing Pro can send up to four texts per unsold-estimate campaign that can link to the open estimate and stop once a job is booked. A Virtual Agent for unsold estimates that answers questions from the estimate is in private preview.
Whichever you run, swap the stock wording for the templates above. Then test the stop: send an estimate to your own phone, reply to the first reminder, and see whether the next one still goes out.
When the follow-up needs to read the estimate
Built-in reminders send the same words to everyone on a timer. For most small shops that's enough. A custom build pays when the follow-up has to know:
- What's in the estimate and your visit notes, so it can say “the gutter guards are line 6” instead of resending the PDF.
- Your real calendar, so “my next open start is the 14th” is true the day it's sent.
- The financing you actually offer, so the options touch can mention it.
- The customer's reply. “Does that include haul-away?” needs an answer or a handoff to you, not touch four on schedule.
That's a build on top of the software you already run, the kind of workflow automation for quoting and follow-up I do, and it's the same trade-off as a canned drip versus software wired into your records. Skip it if you send a handful of estimates a week. On ServiceTitan, see what the Virtual Agent preview becomes first.