Moving Estimate Follow-Up: When the Quote Goes Quiet

Count it first: last month’s estimates, five columns

Before buying anything, pull last month’s estimates from the moving CRM — every one sent, booked or not — and fill five columns for each.

In California the list also exists on paper. The state’s Maximum Rate Tariff 4 requires a mover to keep each “Estimated Cost of Services” for at least three years, counted from the date of the estimate when the mover does not perform the move (Item 108), and to prepare an “Agreement for Moving Services” for every shipper who gives enough detail to complete one, “regardless of shipper commitment” (Item 128). Every unbooked California estimate has a document behind it.

• Sent: the date and time the estimate went out, and the estimator who sent it.
• Move date: the date the customer asked for. An estimate for a move three days out and one for a move in six weeks need different follow-up.
• Next call: whether a dated next call exists, and whose name is on it.
• Outcome: booked, lost, closed by the customer, or still open.
• Reason: for every lost estimate, the reason in the customer’s words — chose another mover, price, date unavailable, decided not to move, never reached.

Illustrative example: a company sends 60 estimates in a month. Twenty-one book. Nine are marked lost, six of them with a reason. Thirty still read “Quoted,” and only eight of those have a dated next call with a name on it. The twenty-two with neither a next call nor an outcome are the leak, and six lost reasons are all the company knows about why. If one in five of those twenty-two could have booked at an average of $2,500 a move, that is about $11,000 of moves in one month that ended without anyone deciding. The numbers are hypothetical; the count on the company’s own list gives the real ones.

What an interstate moving estimate already had to contain

For interstate moves, the federal household-goods rules in 49 CFR Part 375 shape what the estimate already says, and that changes what a follow-up call is for. The rules apply to individual shippers — people who own the goods and pay their own charges — not to commercial accounts or moves an employer pays for. Moves within one state follow that state’s rules.

• A written estimate based on a physical survey. Under 49 CFR 375.401(a), the mover surveys the goods and gives the prospective shipper a written estimate based on that survey. The definitions in 375.103 allow the survey to be on-site or virtual, by live or pre-recorded video that lets the mover clearly identify the goods. A shipper may waive the survey only in writing, signed before loading.
• Binding or non-binding, said on its face. Section 375.401(b) requires the estimate to say which it is. A mover may charge for a written binding estimate; it may not charge for a non-binding one.
• Signed and dated. Under 375.401(h), the mover and the shipper both sign the estimate, and the shipper receives a dated copy.
• Two publications with it. Section 375.213(a) requires the mover, when it provides the written estimate, to provide “Ready to Move?” and “Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move,” as a copy or a link.
• Changes only before loading. Under 375.401(i), the mover and the shipper may amend an estimate before loading by mutual agreement; it may not be amended after loading.

So the follow-up call is not the place to re-quote from memory. If the family has added a garage’s worth of goods since the survey, the honest step is a new written estimate, signed, not a number on the phone. And if the call turns up a lower price elsewhere, the useful question is what that estimate covers, item by item, against the one already signed. This is what the text says; a transportation attorney can say how it applies to a given move. Not legal advice.

A moving estimate follow-up routine with one owner

The routine needs a name more than a tool. One person — an estimator with blocked time, a sales coordinator or the office manager — owns the list of open estimates, and every estimate leaves with a dated next call already on that person’s calendar and the customer’s decision date written on the record.

• Same day or next morning: the estimator calls, not to close, to answer. “What questions came up after the survey?” The open question — the piano, the stairs at the new place, whether the price holds — is usually why the family has not decided.
• Two or three days later: the owner of the list calls or texts with something new — a crew and truck still open on the requested date, a mid-month date that is easier to hold, a plain explanation of what binding means on this estimate.
• Before the customer’s decision date: one direct question. “Should I hold this date for you, or close the estimate out?” A deposit is what turns a held date into a booked one.
• Then an outcome, recorded by a person: booked, lost with a reason, or closed by the customer. No estimate stays “Quoted” past its move date.

Automated texts and emails from the moving software can run underneath this routine and keep the estimate easy to find. They do not replace it. A text that went out is an activity, not an outcome, and the count above only works on outcomes. A fifteen-minute review every Monday — every open estimate older than a week gets a call or a recorded outcome — keeps the list honest.

Speed, trust or price: reading the lost reasons

After a month of recorded reasons, the three causes separate on their own. If the reasons read “went with someone who called back” or “never reached,” the problem is speed and ownership, and the routine above is the fix. If they read “not sure the price would hold” or “worried about extra charges,” the problem is trust, and the fix is in the estimate itself: a clear inventory, a plain statement of binding or non-binding, and what happens if goods are added before loading.

If they read “price,” look before cutting it. Lay the competing number, where the customer shares it, against the inventory and services the company priced. A lower estimate for fewer goods is not a lower price for the same move. For an interstate move, matching it means a new written estimate that lists what it covers, not a verbal promise. Cutting price to win back estimates that were really lost for speed costs twice: lower margin on the moves that book, and the same unanswered questions on the ones that do not.

Lead sources belong in the same table. Leads sold to several movers at once start with other movers calling the same family, and the outcome and reason by source show which sources book and which only produce estimates. That is the number to bring to the next conversation about lead spend.

How do I grow a moving company without buying more leads?

Book a larger share of the families who already asked for an estimate, and keep more of each move, before paying for another inquiry. What a moving company earns rests on three numbers: the number of families who ask for an estimate, the share of estimates that book, and what each booked move keeps after crew hours, truck and lead cost. Buying leads moves only the first, and at a price. The records the company already has — the estimate list, the lost reasons, the lead sources and the bills of lading from past moves — can move all three.

For example, a company that sends 60 estimates a month and books 21 of them adds six moves a month by booking 27, with the same lead spend. Buying those six moves instead, at the same booked share, would take about 17 more estimates and the leads behind them. The numbers are hypothetical; the five-column count above gives the company’s own.

Buy more leads after that, not before. Once every estimate ends in an outcome and the outcomes are split by source, the company can work out what one more lead from a source is worth to it: the share of that source’s leads that book, times what a booked move keeps. Lead spend then becomes arithmetic rather than a guess.

• Open estimates first: run the routine above on every open estimate whose move date has not passed, and record an outcome on the rest. The lead cost on those families is already spent, so each one that books adds a move with no new lead fee.
• Cost per booked move by source: divide last month’s spend on each lead source by the moves it booked, not by the leads it sent. A source with cheap leads that seldom book can cost more per booked move than a source with pricier leads that do.
• Past customers: the bills of lading from past moves are a list of families and businesses who already moved with the company. A call or note after delivery asking for a review or a referral can add inquiries without a lead fee. Under the FTC rule at 16 CFR 465.4, a business may not provide compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned on, a review that expresses a particular sentiment, positive or negative.
• Kept per move: compare estimated with actual crew hours on last month’s moves, and check that every charge billed after delivery was invoiced and collected. Crew hours past what a binding estimate priced, or a balance never invoiced, is work the company paid for and did not collect on.

When not to hire anyone for this

Skip outside help if every estimate from last month has a dated next call, a named owner and a recorded outcome with a reason. That company has already done the work. Skip it, too, for a one-truck operation where the owner surveys, quotes and calls back every family personally; the list fits in one head. And if the trouble is that too few families ask for estimates at all, that is a marketing question, not a follow-up one.

For a moving and storage company at about $1M a year and up, where the estimators, the office and the crews are different people and nobody can say how many of last month’s estimates ended without an outcome, the Revenue Review takes two weeks: read-only access to the moving CRM, phone logs, bills of lading and the books, ending in a written report that puts a monthly dollar figure on each leak the records support, estimates gone quiet included. Implementation is scoped and priced separately. We do not run a moving company, and the Review gives no legal advice. A free 20-minute call is enough to tell whether it fits, including when it does not.