Question handling
Price questions, and the number you must not invent
Price is the most asked and least published thing on most business websites, which is exactly why an assistant that can answer it well changes the numbers. It is also the question with the sharpest failure mode, because a figure produced in chat is treated by the person reading it as a figure the business stands behind.
What they are really asking
What will this cost me specifically, and can I afford to keep talking to you.
- how much does it cost
- whats your pricing
- do you have a price list
- how much for a small one
- is there a monthly option
- do you charge per user
- whats included in that price
- do you do discounts
- is there a setup fee
- how much would it be for something like mine
The material that answers it
An assistant is only as good as the document behind it, and for this question the document usually exists but is written in the wrong shape. What each one has to contain to be answerable:
| A price list with the units named | Per hour, per item, per person, per month, per square metre, per visit. The unit is half the answer and it is the half most often left implicit. A list that says the number without the unit produces answers that are technically correct and practically useless. |
|---|---|
| What each price includes and excludes | The inclusion list is what stops a price being quoted and then argued about. Materials, travel, setup, support, the first period, the thing everybody assumes is included. Write the exclusions too, because the exclusions are where the disappointment lives. |
| Bands and typical ranges for work you scope | If a firm number needs a survey, publish the range anyway and label it as a range with the thing that moves it inside the range. A labelled range answers the affordability question without becoming a quotation. |
| Your from pricing, with the conditions attached | A from price is a real number for a real configuration. Index which configuration, because a from price with no conditions is the fastest route to a customer who feels misled and is not wrong. |
| Anything that changes a price predictably | Volume breaks, out of hours rates, urgency surcharges, geography, minimum charges. These get asked constantly and are usually only in somebody's head. Written down, they turn vague price answers into useful ones. |
How to handle it
Work out which of the three price questions this is
There is the list question, which wants your published prices and is easy. There is the fit question, which wants to know roughly what somebody like them pays. And there is the quote question, which is about a specific job and cannot be answered from a page at all.
Handling them identically is what produces bad price answers. The first is a lookup, the second is a range, and the third is a conversation with a person.
Answer with the number and the unit and the boundary
A useful price answer is three parts: the figure, what it buys, and what sits outside it. Two of those are usually missing from the source material, which is why so many price replies produce an immediate follow up question.
Where a minimum charge exists, say it in the same breath. Somebody quoted an hourly rate who then discovers a two hour minimum has been told the truth twice and misled once.
Use the band, and label it as a band
For anything that has to be scoped, the correct answer is your published range with the variables named: it depends on size, on access, on condition, on how many. Naming the variables does two useful things, it makes the range credible and it starts the scoping conversation.
Then say plainly that the exact figure follows the survey, the assessment or the call. That sentence is what keeps a range from hardening into a quote.
Never build a total the customer describes
The dangerous pattern is arithmetic. Somebody says they have four of something and asks what that comes to, and the assistant multiplies. It has now produced a figure that appears nowhere in your material and that nobody has checked against how you actually price at that volume.
State the unit price and let the person do their own arithmetic, or hand over. A quoted total is a commitment in a way a rate card is not.
When it stops being an answer
Any request for a discount, a match or a negotiated rate
Discounts are commercial decisions and they are conceded by people, not by documents. An assistant that mentions a discount because a discount appeared somewhere in your material has just made it the opening position of every negotiation you have from now on.
Anything the customer wants a firm number for
Once somebody says just give me a price, the conversation has stopped being a price question and become a quote request. Hand over with the description they have already typed captured, so the estimator does not start from nothing.
Prices that move faster than your material
Rates tied to materials, fuel, exchange rates or seasonal demand go stale between the time you index a document and the time somebody reads the answer. Point the assistant at the page you actually maintain rather than uploading a copy you will forget, and put a date on the page.
How this one goes wrong
The number that turned into a promise
Somebody describes a job in two sentences. The assistant, matching against a page of examples, produces a figure. When the estimator eventually looks at it, the real number is meaningfully higher, and the customer has been anchored to the first one for a week.
You now lose either way. Honour the number and you have sold work below cost. Correct it and you have a customer who believes they were quoted and then upsold, which is the version of the story they will tell. This is the single most damaging failure in the money family, and it is prevented by material that publishes ranges rather than examples, and by an assistant configured to hand over the moment a question is about one specific job.
The same question, trade by trade
The pattern above holds everywhere. The wording, the escalation line and the material behind it do not, so there is a page per trade.
- For a dental clinicDental prices come in bands and the final figure follows an examination. Quoting one without committing the practice.
- For a medical practiceDriver medicals, insurance forms and private letters carry a fee; the appointment does not. Publishing the work that sits outside.
- For a veterinary clinicVaccination and neutering prices get compared between practices before anyone registers. Quoting them properly.
- For a physiotherapy clinicSomebody asking what a physio session costs is really asking what getting better costs. Answering both honestly.
- For a opticianA pair of glasses has two prices that combine, and the lens half is not settled until after the sight test.
- For a pharmacyA charge per dispensed item, a shelf label and a private prescription fee behave differently, and the exemption belongs to the patient.
- For a law firmHourly grades, fixed fee ranges and conditional fee terms are publishable. A figure for somebody's own matter is not, and here is the wording.
- For a accounting firmFixed monthly packages against hourly work, priced by client profile, and why the answer changes in the weeks before a filing deadline.
- For a insurance brokerA premium is the insurer's number. The fee schedule is the broker's own, it is publishable, and disclosing it is not optional.
- For a mortgage brokerIndexed rate material is the fastest rotting content a broker can publish. How to answer what rate can i get without repeating last month's.
- For a estate agencySellers ask about commission and tie ins, landlords ask what the management fee covers. Same words, different audiences, different answers.
- For a recruitment agencyOne site, two prices. A candidate is never charged, and a client wants a percentage of salary or a margin inside an hourly rate.
- For a marketing agencyEngagement shapes, minimum terms and what sits inside the monthly fee. The commercial structure prospects compare before they compare agencies.
- For a online storeA catalogue price changes without notice, so an indexed copy of it goes stale within hours. Quote the rules around it instead.
- For a fashion retailerWas, now and further reduced are three numbers on one ticket. Codes that die on sale lines, and one size cleared while the run stays full price.
- For a furniture retailerThe ticket is one size in the lowest cloth grade. Change the grade, the arm or the delivery zone and the figure moves with it.
- For a electronics retailerThe rules are publishable and the decision is not. Which sellers count, what a condition grade means, and who signs a claim off.
- For a garden centrePot size is the product, so one species carries several prices. Bench reductions exist nowhere in writing and can never be quoted.
- For a bike shopBike tickets and a workshop labour menu are both quotable exactly. A repair is not, until the bike is on a stand and stripped.
- For a restaurantThe set lunch runs on certain days, the fish is market price, the steak carries a supplement, and service goes on at the end.
- For a hotelTwo rate plans on one room, a city tax added at the desk, and a figure on a travel site that is not the hotel's to explain or match.
- For a holiday rentalThe rate moves with the week of the year and the length of stay, then the changeover clean, the pet supplement and the short break premium go on top.
- For a gymThe advertised monthly figure is rarely what leaves the account first. Publish the joining fee and the off peak hours and answer honestly.
- For a salon or spaLength, thickness and stylist level move every figure on the list. Publish the reasons and the range can be explained honestly.
- For a universityFees change by nationality, year of entry and course. Here is how an assistant answers without giving the wrong figure to the wrong applicant.
- For a private schoolFees are published per term by year group. The compulsory charges sit outside them, and the registration fee is not a fee at all.
- For a driving schoolHourly rates, block bookings and the separate government test fee. Three numbers learners routinely add up wrong.
- For a online courseWhy a cohort costs more than the self paced version, what lifetime access is worth, and how a three payment plan changes the total.
- For a plumbing and heating firmThe call out charge, the first hour, the rate after it and the weekend uplift are four numbers, and most plumbing sites publish none.
- For a electrical contractorFault finding is sold by time because the time is the work, and a board change can grow the moment the old circuits are tested.
- For a removals companyA day rate with a crew of three, or a fixed price for the job. Then materials, dismantling, a permit and waiting time sit outside both.
- For a car dealershipThe screen price, the admin fee, the first registration cost and the road tax are four separate numbers, and only one of them is on the advert.
- For a SaaS companySeats, overages and mid cycle changes are where SaaS pricing questions actually land. What an assistant can quote, and what it must never invent.
- For a developer tools companyRequests, builds, minutes or seats. What a metered price has to state before a developer can model a month and defend the number internally.
- For a fintech appMargins, thresholds and free allowances can be quoted exactly. A rate at this minute, and what a conversion costs today, cannot.
- For a healthtech appConsultation allowances, the plan that has none, and the medicine priced somewhere else. Publishing a health price so nobody is surprised twice.
Questions
- Should we publish prices at all if we normally quote?
- Publish a range and the variables that move it. The visitor asking is trying to work out whether to keep talking to you, and an unanswered price question loses more enquiries than a range that turns out to be wide. The range is also the material that lets the assistant answer without inventing anything.
- Can it stop somebody being quoted the wrong figure?
- The controls that matter are the caution level, which decides whether it answers from a weak match or refuses, and the material itself. Every answer carries a citation back to the passage that produced it, so a wrong price traces to a specific document you can fix.
- What about prices that vary by country?
- Index them as separate labelled sets rather than one page with footnotes. The assistant answers from the passage it matched, and a footnote three paragraphs away from a table is a passage it may not match. Say which currency and which region in the same sentence as the number.
- How do we handle a customer who keeps pushing for a total?
- Write the handover wording so it does not read as a refusal. Naming the two or three things you need to know before a number is possible reads as competence, and it moves the conversation to the person who can actually give the figure.
Keep reading
- Handling refund requestsA refund question is really about eligibility and timing. What to index, what the reply may promise, and where it has to reach a person.
- Handling cancellationsCancellation content is hard to find on purpose. What it costs to answer plainly, how notice periods work, and what happens to data on the way out.
- Handling billing and invoicesInvoice copies, tax numbers, purchase order references. Nearly all of it is account specific, so the honest handling is process plus a clean handover.
- Every question typeHandling patterns for the questions every support inbox gets.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.