Many businesses require customers to generate quotes or get estimates before they move forward with your services. But if the quote generation process is long, difficult, or otherwise inconvenient, your customers may never move forward.
How do you make the quote generation process easier for your customers, and what are the hallmarks of successful quote generation strategies?
Make It Easy for Customers to Find Your Quote Generator
If your customers aren’t able to find your quote generator, or if they don’t know how to contact you, they’re probably not going to move forward, even if they’re otherwise interested in your business. Therefore, your top priority should be making it easy for customers to find and use your quote generator (or contact form).
- Homepage and navigation. Most people visiting your business will visit the homepage first or spend at least some time there, so it’s important to feature your quote generator prominently on the homepage. It’s also a good idea to include links to your quote page and contact page in your main navigation as visibly as possible, to push people in that direction.
- Calls to action (CTAs). Completing a form to generate a quote or providing information through a contact form or both considered conversions, and to see more conversions, you’ll need calls to action (CTAs) peppered throughout your website. You don’t want to bombard or annoy your visitors, but you also want to make sure they see an opportunity to generate a quote as often as possible. Make sure there’s at least one call to action on each page of your website, and make that CTA prominent with the help of better positioning and design.
- Comparison sites. Consider featuring your website and brand on comparison sites that allow visitors to compare quotes from a multitude of different providers. For example, the best auto insurance comparison sites typically have sample quotes from dozens of different auto insurance companies – and tools that customers can use to quickly generate custom quotes from each provider. Getting your brand featured on this list can help you reach customers when they’re most likely to make the final decision on a purchase.
- Search engine optimization (SEO). Is your quote form discoverable through organic search? If not, you should be working on your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Optimize your quote page for specific keywords that are likely to be searched by your target demographics, develop higher quality content on your website, and build several links pointing to this page. If you’re successful, your quote page will rank higher in search engines, and you’ll generate more organic traffic to it.
- Other marketing and advertising. Of course, there are a variety of marketing and advertising strategies that can help you make quote generation more prominent and easier to find throughout the web. Pay per click (PPC) advertising, e-mail marketing, and social media are just a few examples.
Understand Your Target Audience
Through market research and the development of customer personas, you can better understand your target audience and then craft a quote generation process that better suits them.
For example, do your target demographics generally prefer talking to human beings, rather than dealing with automated technological processes? If so, it’s a good idea to include a human sales representative in the quote generation process. Do your target demographics typically behave impatiently, with relatively limited attention spans? If so, you need to optimize your quote generation process for speed and efficiency.
Simplify the Form
Most people aren’t going to fill out your form or buy your product or service if the initial process for generating a quote is too time consuming or frustrating. Accordingly, you should simplify your form as much as you can.
Only request the pieces of information you truly need and make sure your form is functional and easy to use across all devices, platforms, and browsers. Conduct tests to see how long it takes the average person to fill out this form and keep making tweaks until you’re satisfied with the average time spent.
Automate What You Can
Automated quote generation is much faster and more consistent than manual quote generation, so it’s a good idea to automate whatever you can. Ideally, your customers will get a generated quote within minutes of completing the initial form.
Streamline What You Can’t Automate
If you can’t or don’t want to automate quote generation for any reason, make sure you streamline your manual processes on the back end. Your salespeople should be trained and ready to provide quotes within an hour or two of the initial request.
Ask for Feedback – and Act on It!
Finally, ask your customers for feedback. They’ll tell you whether your quote generation process was up to snuff. If they have recommendations for how to make the process easier or better, take them seriously – and act on that feedback.
Generating a quote shouldn’t take forever, and it shouldn’t be a pain. With the right optimizations, you and your business won’t have to worry about it – and you’ll earn far more conversions as a result.
