Playbook, electrical contractor
Two kinds of electrical quote, and telling a caller which they want
Every trade says every job is different, and in electrical work that is only half true, which is what makes the reply interesting. Part of the work is a priced product with a number on it. The rest genuinely cannot be priced until somebody has looked at what a previous electrician left behind a wall thirty years ago. Saying which half a caller is in is the whole of a good answer.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for quotes and estimates holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The trade splits cleanly into priced products (an inspection report costed by property size, a fixed price charge point install) and jobs that cannot be costed until the existing installation has been seen.
- What decides the second sort is invisible from the room: the age and type of the existing wiring, the earthing arrangement, whether the board has a spare way, and whether cables can be chased in or have to run on the surface.
- A quote here often breeds a second quote, because an inspection that finds remedial work turns into a separately priced job, and a customer who was not warned reads that as an upsell.
- Small jobs are dominated by the minimum charge rather than the hourly rate, so leading with the rate misdescribes what a single socket actually costs.
How it arrives
- how much to rewire a three bed
- how much is an inspection report
- can you price moving a socket over the phone
- what is included in the quote
- do you charge to come and quote
- why can you not just give me a ballpark
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What you price as a fixed product, with the figures | Inspection reports by bedrooms or circuits, standard charge point installations, additional sockets on an existing circuit. These have real numbers and publishing them wins the comparison. |
|---|---|
| What needs a visit, and precisely what the visit looks at | Written as a list of physical things rather than as a sentence about every job being different. The list is the argument for the visit, and it is also what makes the refusal read as competence. |
| The remedial work path after an inspection | That a report can come back with items needing attention, that those are quoted separately, and roughly how that conversation goes. This is the second invoice, and it belongs in front of the first. |
| Whether quoting is free, and how long a quote stands | Both questions are asked constantly and neither is on most electrical websites. A quote with a stated validity period also gives your office a clean reason to revisit an old one. |
The reply
Some of it we can price now. An inspection report is costed by the size of the property and that figure is on our prices page. A rewire, or anything that means opening walls and floors, cannot be priced from a description, because it turns on the existing wiring, the earthing arrangement, whether the board has a spare way, and whether cables can be chased in or have to go on the surface. That is what the visit checks, and the visit is free. One thing worth knowing early: if an inspection finds work that needs doing, that is quoted separately.
It gives a real price for the half that has one, which stops the whole reply reading as evasion, then explains the other half in terms of four physical things rather than a platitude. The final line pre-empts the remedial invoice, which is where the complaints in this trade actually come from.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any request for a figure on work that needs a visit, any question about a quote already issued, and anything about a discount.
A real figure needs somebody to look at what is already there. Leave your name, a number and the address and we will arrange a visit and come back to you with a written quote.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- A price or a price range for a rewire, a board change or anything behind a wall.
- That an existing installation is probably fine, or probably needs work.
- That a quote will not change, since a quote follows a survey rather than a description.
- Any figure for remedial work found by an inspection that has not happened yet.
Questions
- Is it not weak to refuse a ballpark when competitors give one?
- A ballpark given from a description becomes the number the customer expects, and every later figure looks like an increase. Naming the four things the visit checks tells the caller you know the job, which is what a ballpark was standing in for.
- Should the remedial work warning really come this early?
- Yes. It is the single most common complaint after an inspection, and it disappears entirely if the customer heard it before the report rather than with the second invoice. It costs one sentence at the point where nobody has spent anything.
- Which fixed prices are worth publishing?
- The inspection report by property size, above everything else. It is a like for like comparison people genuinely shop on, it is the most searched price in the trade, and a firm that will not publish it loses to one that will.
Keep reading
- Everything for a electrical contractorCall out charges, EV charger enquiries and landlord certificates are answerable. A described electrical fault is an escalation, not a question.
- Handling quotes and estimates in generalWhat has to be known before a number is possible, how the scoping step works, and how to answer without stonewalling or inventing a figure.
- New load on an old installation, answered without giving a verdictChargers, showers and hot tubs all raise one question about the supply. The honest answer is the short list the survey checks.
- Why an electrical fault cannot be worked out from a descriptionFault finding means isolating circuits and testing them. A guess from a description is worse than nothing, because somebody acts on it.
- The two questions hiding inside are you insuredThis question is really two. One is about your liability cover, the other about the paperwork a solicitor will ask for years later.
Try it on your own material
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