A customer approves your $4,200 estimate on Monday. By Friday, the car never shows up. You call. They already booked with a competitor at $4,500.
This is not a pricing problem. It is a follow-up problem.
Most collision shops close about 65 to 75 percent of the estimates they write. That means 25 to 35 percent never convert. In many cases, the customer already said yes. The job is lost between approval and scheduling.
The mistake: “I’ll call them tomorrow.”
You write a clean estimate. The customer agrees. You mentally move on to the next task.
Then the mistake happened.
Day 2: You forget to follow up. The shop is busy.
Day 4: The customer has questions but does not want to bother you.
Day 6: Another shop calls and says, “We can start Monday.”
Day 7: The customer is gone.
You blame the price. The real issue is speed and consistency. The other shop followed up. You did not, and customers read your silence as a signal.
The fix: automate follow-up
Follow-up should not depend on memory or spare time. Set simple rules to minimize time and resources to do these follow-ups:
- Send automatic reminders on Day 2 and Day 5 after approval.
- Text a direct scheduling link. “Ready to book? Click here.”
- Flag estimates that sit unbooked after 7 days for a personal call.
- Track close rates by estimator to see where jobs stall
This does not replace human contact. It protects it. Automation covers the gaps when the shop gets loud.
The real impact
Write 40 estimates per month. Lose 25 percent to poor follow-up. That is 10 jobs.
At a $3,500 average repair, that is $35,000 per month. Over a year, $420,000 in missed revenue. No marketing spend required to fix it.
One thing to do today
Pull estimates from two weeks ago. Find customers who said yes but never scheduled. Call three of them.
Ask one question. “What happened?” And listen for feedback.
