The Big Problem with Instant Quotes
If you’re in working in machine shops, in particular, in the 3D printing space, you might have come across instant quotation tools. There’s quite some range in the offerings out there, going from the open source (on Wordpress for example) to more enterprise solutions that are emerging every day.
Over the past few years we’ve spent a lot of time working with manufacturers who have used these tools. Most companies tend to hop between solutions hoping to find something that works. Sadly, this is often means that companies are going around-and-around and then back to square one.
In this article I'm going to share with you the main reasons why Instant Quotes are often a failure for 3D printing companies.
1. Manufacturing is NOT Shopify
Some instant quote tools have been advocating for the idea that Manufacturing will eventually become like Shopify, a click-and-collect experience. Maybe a dreamy-eyed software engineer can believe this, but none of my manufacturing colleagues would agree.
There is a reason that the Requirements document forms the center of any QMS, such as in ISO9001 or AS9100. A CAD file alone is a great medium for building a shared understanding what’s to be built, but it doesn’t tell you how the part will be used, it’s functional properties or tolerances.
As any machinist could tell you, you learn this by talking to the customer!
If anything, we need tools that bring machinists closer to the customer, not further away! That doesn’t mean we can’t automate the redundant tasks that all-too-often burden a machine shop with admin work, we just have to remember that the customer relationship is the reason we’re trying to free up that time!
Furthermore, many customers will be unfamiliar with instant quotations. It’s extremely important that the software instills trust and displays similarities with other tools that they may work with. A file upload area may be intimidating to some users, it’s important that this is considered in the User Experience of whatever tool you use. Sadly, most instant quotation tools do not do this.
2. You need a digital strategy for a digital storefront
I’ve seen many company’s purchase an instant quote tool only to be disappointed by the results. They are led to believe that by simply placing the storefront on their website, they’ll get orders.
Unfortunately this is often not the case. When I work with machine shops, we often need to spend time at the beginning developing a digital presence. Tools like Google Analytics can be really useful for this, as it helps us identify whether people are coming to your website at all. Certainly, producing content and adding customer reviews to your website can be an excellent way to build your Google profile.
We’ve seen people successfully execute a number of brilliant strategies:
- Produce a website and market it using geography (think: I’m known as the best additive shop in West Berlin! Everyone comes to me!)
- Target an audience of customers based on a product you’re great at building (think: when people come to me, they know they’ll get dental implants they can trust)
- Build a brand as a specialist (think: everyone knows that I’m the expert on ceramic printing in Australia, even other additive shops order from me)
I really wish it was possible to outsource this to a piece of software, but no matter what anyone tells you, the manufacturer still needs a strong understanding of their customers needs and, importantly, an understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses as a manufacturing business.
3. The real money-maker is the trusted partner
Every single success story I’ve seen with instant quoting has it’s own story arc, but they all end at the same place.
It’s the customer relationship!!
You can’t put a price on the trust that you can build with your customers. An instant quote tool might give you an opportunity to get “a leg in the door” with new customers, but the real opportunity will come through having a long term relationship with your client.
They want to know that someone is supporting them in their product development journey, someone who understands their goals and will put quality of outcome above bottom line growth.
The instantly quoted part can be the first step in a long, trusting and loyal relationship with a new client. It lets you extend your supporting hand early, but there’s still work to be done by humans.
So I shouldn’t use instant quotes?
Well I think it depends on your business case! I’ve personally found that there are tools that really can help a manufacturer grow their business online, I just feel that instant quotes are only a small part of that journey. In my opinion, the ideal tool would do the following:
- Get an instant price for a customer to get them bought-in, then comprehensively gather requirements from the customer as part of the ordering process
- Automatically book the payment into the accounting system
- Keep the customer updated as the order proceeds through production, all while communicating the customers’ requirements to everyone on the production team
- Notify the customer of when the part ships and give them the opportunity to feedback to the production team upon delivery
- If the customer is happy with the delivery, make it really easy (like, super easy) to re-order that part whenever they want!
This flow is ideal, since it balances ease of ordering (instant quotes) with an opportunity to develop a further relationship with the customer. Note that this flow doesn’t create space between you and your customer, it simply automates low-value work (like invoicing and keeping the team up to date) so you can focus on delivering a top-tier experience leading to high margin re-orders.
So what to do?
(shameless plug)
After seeing this happen again and again on repeat, myself and some colleagues decided to launch Phasio to solve this issue. We’re a passionate young team, we’re constantly evolving the platform to deliver even better on the value I’ve described here. We believe in empowering manufacturers to focus on the Three Virtues of Manufacturing. If you want to be a part of this, please reach out to us at https://phas.io.
