01 the business
Industrial equipment distributor
60 staff, one senior estimator
Every quote passes through the same senior estimator, who also handles the largest accounts. Requests queue for days. When quotes do go out, they are assembled from old proposals, and the team has sent at least one with another customer's name in it.
02 before
The problem
A senior person rebuilds each quote by hand, copying sections from an old proposal and re-checking prices in a spreadsheet. Quotes sit in a queue behind their real work, and small copy-paste mistakes like the wrong client name or an old rate slip through to customers.
- Quotes wait three to five working days behind the estimator's other work.
- Prices are re-checked by hand against a spreadsheet that is not always the latest version.
- Scope wording varies from quote to quote, which causes disputes later about what was included.
03 the build
What the AI does
- Step 1: Reads the deal record, call notes and any attached drawings or briefs from your CRM and shared drive.
- Step 2: Picks the right proposal template and pulls matching scope sections from past proposals you have marked as good examples.
- Step 3: Prices each line from your current rate card or product list in QuickBooks or Xero and flags anything that has no listed price.
- Step 4: Writes a draft cover note and scope summary that reflect what the customer actually asked for.
- Step 5: Saves the draft to Google Drive, links it on the deal and notifies the owner in Slack with a list of the assumptions it made.
paused: waiting for a person to approve
How it was put together
- Tagged twenty past proposals as good examples and split them into reusable scope sections.
- Linked the live price list in the accounting system so every line is priced from one source.
- Made the agent list every assumption it made, such as a quantity read from a drawing, at the top of the draft.
- Saved drafts to the shared drive and linked them on the CRM deal with a Slack note to the owner.
04 human in the loop
Where a person stays in charge
Nothing goes to a customer without a person reading it. The deal owner checks scope, prices and discounts, edits the draft, and sends it themselves through DocuSign or email.
- Nothing is sent to a customer automatically. The deal owner edits and sends every quote.
- Lines without a listed price are left blank and flagged, never guessed.
- Discounts above the usual limit still need the director's approval, as before.
05 rollout
From kickoff to live in 5–6 weeks
- Weeks 1–2Collect example proposals, clean the rate card and agree the template structure.
- Weeks 3–4Draft quotes in parallel with the estimator and compare line by line.
- Weeks 5–6Switch to draft-first for standard quotes; keep complex projects manual until the drafts earn trust.
06 after
What changes
Quotes go out the same day the request comes in, not when the busiest person finds time. Pricing stays consistent because every draft starts from the same rate card, and senior staff review instead of retype.
Assume 80 quotes a month and 90 minutes of senior time to build each one from scratch, falling to 25 minutes to review a draft.
80 × 90 minutes = 120 hours a month today. 80 × 25 minutes = about 33 hours with drafts. That frees roughly 87 hours of senior time a month.
What to measure
- Working days from request to quote sent.
- Share of drafts sent with only minor edits.
- Pricing errors found after sending.
- Quote-to-order conversion rate.
07 evidence
What the research says
In a study of 453 professionals doing writing tasks from their own jobs, access to ChatGPT cut the time taken by 40% and raised quality, as rated by evaluators, by 18%.
In a field experiment with 758 BCG consultants, those using GPT-4 on tasks within its abilities finished 12.2% more tasks, 25.1% faster and at over 40% higher quality, but did worse on a task outside its abilities.
08 lessons
Mistakes to avoid
- Feeding it every old proposal, including the bad ones. Curate the examples.
- Letting the price list drift. The drafts are only as good as the rate card behind them.
- Skipping the assumptions list. It is what makes a fast review possible.
09 questions
Common questions
- Can it read technical drawings?
- It can pull quantities and dimensions from clear drawings and briefs, and it flags anything it is unsure of. A person still confirms the scope.
- What if our pricing depends on judgement?
- Then the draft leaves those lines for the estimator and explains why. Most quotes are a mix of standard lines and a few judgement calls.