A company in the industrial installations sector sent an average of 60 to 70 quotes a month. The salesperson, who was also the owner, managed to follow up on about twenty: the large ones, the ones from known clients, the ones that felt warmest. The rest got no follow-up after the PDF was sent.
It was not a lack of will. Following up on 60 quotes properly takes an organization that one person cannot sustain. Most clients do not reply to a first quote not because they are uninterested, but because they are busy and waiting for a nudge. Without the nudge, the deal dies.
What we built
We built an n8n workflow that starts automatically every time a quote is sent. It runs a sequence of three touchpoints over the 14 days after sending.
The first message goes out three days after the quote: a short, non-salesy email asking whether the quote arrived correctly and whether there are any questions. The second comes on day seven: one line that references a specific detail of the quote (the workflow reads the data from the CRM and personalizes the text). The third comes on day fourteen: a closing message offering a 15-minute call to clear up any doubts.
If the client replies at any point in the sequence, the workflow stops and hands the conversation to the salesperson with the full context. The salesperson no longer manages the sequence, only the conversations it opens.
What changed
In 90 days, the close rate on quotes went from 14% to 23%. It is not magic: many quotes that used to die in silence now got a reply, even if only to say the project had slipped by a few months.
The most interesting effect was on mid-size quotes, from 5,000€ to 15,000€, which used to get followed up only when the salesperson had time. With automatic follow-up, three of them converted in the first 90 days. One alone was worth the cost of the entire project.
What we do not automate
The sequence stops the moment there is a sign of life. We do not want an interested client receiving an automated message while they are already talking to the salesperson. Reply detection works on email, but not on WhatsApp or phone calls: if the client answers by phone and nobody updates the CRM, the sequence continues until someone stops it manually.
We also chose not to automate the third touchpoint for clients with more than three previous quotes and no conversion: there, the salesperson prefers to handle the contact personally. A simple rule in the workflow, but it took a conversation to understand the company's sales policy.
Who this is for: Any B2B company that sends quotes by email and follows up irregularly. If you send more than 20 quotes a month and cannot follow up on all of them systematically, an automated sequence is worth the time to build. You need a CRM with an API or an up-to-date spreadsheet, and a company email account.
If you send B2B quotes and recognize the problem, we can review your sales process in a 30-minute call and tell you whether and how an automated workflow can help.