Competition asking for a quote?

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Competition asking for a quote?

Any tips on screening process?

Alphawolf

5:13 am on Apr 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

When dealing remotely with potential clients does anyone have tips/hints/advise as to how to sniff out when it's competition looking for info?

Particularly if someone requests a new website...it's understandable they wouldn't have a company phone or company e-mail if they are starting out.

On the other hand a competitor may just be checking me out...or even worse take the proposal I send and tweak it a bit for a client _they_ may have.

I bring this up because when I'm on AdWords/Overture I get some obvious requests for quotes being very terse and avoiding my online quote form, plus voicemails from univerity 'students' doing 'case studies' wanting to know how much a website will cost.

To bring this point home a client of mine recently had this issue.

An articulate woman called and asked a lot of questions just as a potential client would.

He found out a few days ago that this person was either working for or was partnering with an upstart company in his industry.

TIA

chiyo

5:30 am on Apr 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

Ok we have this a lot, even though we offer a business service, not specifically web design.

1. We provide very rough quotes initially but then ask them to send in a written letter/fax on their company letterhead. Then we check their website to help assess whether they are a serious genuine prospect.

2. We check that their email address domain matches up to their company web domain. We dont deail at all with people with hotmail yahoo addresses etc.

3. When we talk on the phone, we ask them a lot of questions about their reasons for wanting the service, how it fits with their company strategy etc.. That is part of understanding what a propsect really wants and how seriously they have thought it through so we can assess how likely they are to convert of course, but also finds out the guys who are not who they claim to be.

Only after that screening process do we devote any more than 30 minutes to any bid or proposal.

We may miss a few genuine enquiries this way, but that is made up for by the many "info-seekers" that are screened out this way.

Alphawolf

3:48 pm on Apr 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

Yes. Follow-up on the phone and willingness to answer questions would be a key consideration.

Obvious- just wanted to see what others came up with.

Seems like you have a very good screening process.

Regards,

SEO practioner

4:41 pm on Apr 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

Alphawolf, Chiyo is 100% right about this critical and delicate subject. When we started out, we quoted on almost everything that jumped at us.

After a while, we came to the conclusion that only about 30% was serious, the rest was coming from competitors, often as far away as Australia and we are in Canada... go figure!

We have learned a lot from all this: never take a person at full face value on the 1st contact

Good luck

SEO

Alphawolf

2:59 am on Apr 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

After a while, we came to the conclusion that only about 30% was serious, the rest was coming from competitors, often as far away as Australia and we are in Canada... go figure!

Wow. 30%? I don't understand the point especially if it's from companies in other countries.

I guess the ease of e-mail people just figure 'why not?' :(

Regards,

cfx211

9:58 pm on Apr 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

While not the case for you, I often found our competitors out on live chat because the chat software would show their IP. Any time something smelled a bit we would do a reverse IP lookup. Its helped us out several times.

Maybe you can collect IP address upon form submission to give you some more info on who is making the request.

Alphawolf

1:52 pm on Apr 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Maybe you can collect IP address upon form submission to give you some more info on who is making the request.

I do collect the IP, but it doesn't help much if it's an earthlink or mindspring, etc...account.