Prepare quotations with AI: turn customer requests into a usable draft

A good quotation often starts with untidy information: a customer email, a few conversation notes and the sales team’s understanding of what the business provides. Turning those fragments into a coherent draft takes office time. AI can shorten this first stage by translating the customer’s request into a useful quotation structure while leaving unresolved decisions visible.

For service providers and sales support teams, the benefit is having something they can review, cost and move into their established quotation process sooner. The services, prerequisites and next steps need to fit together. A polished promise that your business cannot deliver would consume that saved time later through corrections, uncomfortable conversations or work nobody included in the original estimate.

webRichtung Assist supports drafting, rephrasing and summarising through dialogue with company and customer information. Results can be kept as reusable documents; dictation and Skills also form part of its described capabilities. The Assist module page explains these functions. The entirely hypothetical case below shows how they can support the preparation of a specific quotation.

Establish the outcome the customer actually wants

Start with the desired customer outcome before naming individual activities. “We need help with our product descriptions” does not explain whether existing copy needs editing, new copy must be written or the customer expects you to organise publication as well. The draft should reveal these distinctions. Otherwise, a detailed document can still answer a different request from the one the customer intended.

Separate confirmed requests from your own judgement. If the customer mentions ten product pages, ten pages provide a documented starting point. If you think additional search work would help, that is initially your suggestion. AI should not quietly turn it into something already commissioned. Anyone reviewing the quotation needs to understand where each part of the scope came from.

Use the customer email and approved notes that actually exist. If you dictate your own notes after a conversation, identify the important statements and outstanding questions. Dictation helps organise your follow-up work. It does not mean that Assist automatically recorded the customer conversation or knows its complete contents without being given the relevant information.

Explain the purpose of this draft as well. Is it intended to support internal costing, or to prepare a customer version for review? For costing, unresolved service questions can remain detailed. A later customer version needs clear choices and understandable conditions. The next decision determines how much explanation is useful now and prevents unnecessary work on presentation before the scope is settled.

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Build on the services your business actually provides

A usable draft needs your real service descriptions. Supply the approved descriptions that apply to this enquiry. Offering copy editing does not automatically include photography, translation or ongoing support. Company information should make the draft specific and prevent common assumptions about an industry from becoming new promises in your quotation.

Describe each service in language the customer understands. “Editorial work” might be enough internally, but it can leave a buyer uncertain about what they will receive. Explain which existing texts you will work on, what you will improve and how you will deliver the result. This makes the service tangible without promising an outcome your information does not support.

Include the collaboration required to complete the work. Who supplies the source material, answers technical questions and approves the copy? These contributions affect the workload and schedule. A credible quotation can only describe the next step when the contributions needed for it are clear. AI can organise these dependencies, but it cannot confirm whether a customer’s contact person is available.

If you prepare similar drafts regularly, an Assist Skill can preserve a proven workflow. Include the inputs you need, the service terms your business uses and the treatment of unresolved commitments. First check whether these instructions actually help in a concrete case. A reusable rule earns its place by improving real quotation work, rather than merely making every document look similar.

Example: turn an unclear enquiry into decisive questions

Our hypothetical service provider receives an enquiry about editing ten German product pages. The customer wants clearer wording, will provide existing copy and would like the work completed “next month if possible”. Conversation notes say the customer will confirm technical statements. No budget, binding delivery date or arrangement for additional pages has been agreed yet.

The preparation request to Assist could read: “Develop a quotation structure for ten German product descriptions using this information and our confirmed copy-editing service. Separate customer statements, the proposed workflow and open questions. Do not add prices, publication or a success guarantee. Our team needs the result for costing and a later customer version.” This establishes both the purpose and the source boundaries.

Three questions matter first. Are all ten existing texts available? Who will confirm technical statements and supply missing information? Should the work include one consolidated feedback round, and who will collect that feedback? These questions can change the workload. They therefore move the quotation forward more effectively than a long set of generic requests for further detail.

For the remainder of this example, the customer confirms the ten source texts and a named technical contact. The provider proposes one consolidated feedback round, and the customer agrees to that scope. Publication in the customer’s system is outside the proposed service. Dates will be agreed after reviewing the material and checking internal capacity. These are conditions of this fictional case, not standard terms of webRichtung services.

Develop a complete draft of the scope of work

The draft begins with a concrete objective: “We will edit your ten existing German product descriptions so that the services, differences between products and information customers need are presented clearly. We will use your source texts and technical information confirmed by your designated contact.” This connects the customer’s request with a recognisable service without promising search rankings or increased sales.

The scope section explains the work: “We will review the ten source texts, establish a consistent writing approach and edit each text accordingly. We will submit unclear factual statements to your contact for confirmation. You will receive the edited copy in the agreed editable document format.” The wording stays within what the example business actually intends to provide.

The collaboration is equally specific: “You will provide the source texts and consolidate answers to technical questions. After our initial delivery, you will send one consolidated set of feedback covering the ten texts. One revision round based on that feedback is included in the agreed scope.” Both parties can now picture the sequence behind the general wish for better copy.

Relevant additions are addressed directly: “Additional product pages, other languages and publication in your system can be discussed separately if required.” These are the extensions most likely to arise from this particular enquiry. The wording leaves room for further business while making it clear that these activities have not already been included in the workload.

For now, the timing section says: “We will agree the start and delivery dates with you after receiving and reviewing the complete material.” A binding date is added only after confirmation. Pricing remains a visible internal costing decision. The customer version is prepared once the responsible colleague has established the commercial terms, so an unresolved estimate cannot be mistaken for an approved offer.

Check assumptions, quantities and commitments before costing

Read the draft against its sources first. Does it still cover ten texts? Are the language and source material described correctly? Has the single feedback round really been agreed? A small quantity error can create considerable additional work later. Review the limits of the service as carefully as the quality of the writing.

For internal planning in this example, assume twenty minutes to review each text and forty minutes to edit it. Ten times twenty gives 200 minutes; ten times forty adds 400 minutes. Allow another 120 minutes for the consolidated revision and coordination. The total is 720 minutes, or twelve hours. Every figure is a hypothetical planning assumption, not an Assist processing time or price.

Those twelve hours are not yet a selling price. Your business must apply its actual workload assessment, other costs and pricing method. Time allowed for unresolved technical questions may change after reviewing the material. The calculation connects the draft with the work involved. AI should not convert it into a binding customer amount without a confirmed basis.

Pay particular attention to words that can expand a commitment unnoticed. “Complete”, “unlimited”, “guaranteed” or “including all changes” may promise more than you agreed. Their meaning depends on the sentence. If the customer receives one consolidated round, a casual phrase should not include unlimited later revisions. A precise, positive description of the service is more useful than impressive wording the business cannot honour.

Pass the draft into your existing quotation process

A draft is usable when the next responsible person can continue from it. In this example, the colleague doing the costing receives the objective, scope, prerequisites, twelve hypothetical planning hours and outstanding commercial decisions. They should not need to read the entire chat to work out what has been settled and what still needs their judgement.

Assist can retain results as saved, reusable documents. Use that capability to keep a clear working document. Its name should identify the customer, subject and stage of preparation. Organise the transfer into your existing quotation tool according to your team’s workflow. Keeping a document in Assist does not itself establish an automatic handover between any systems you happen to use.

Before preparing the customer version, add the confirmed price, schedule and contacts. A responsible person then reviews the whole document, including the sections that were already written. Do quantities, services and commitments still fit together? Has a reworded sentence turned an optional addition into an included service? The final check concerns the actual document the customer will receive.

Assist’s described product boundary places outward-facing actions under your approval. In this case, an internally prepared text is therefore still a draft, not a sent quotation. Your established quotation process determines the final version and how it is sent. The preparation can save useful time while preserving the commercial judgement that makes the offer suitable for your business.

Use feedback to improve the next draft

After the first case, examine the changes your team actually had to make. Were service boundaries unclear, was customer information missing or did the wording sound too generic? Each finding calls for a different improvement. More style instructions will not supply a missing quantity. A better opening question can prevent several later corrections and make the costing decision easier.

Keep proven wording where it can sensibly be reused. A Skill might require confirmed customer statements to be separated from suggestions and missing terms to remain visible. It should not reduce all quotations to the same service template. The new customer’s request still determines the content and emphasis, including whether the familiar workflow applies at all.

Judge the benefit by the usable result. A fast first text adds little if every statement then has to be researched again and rewritten. Consider preparation, technical review and rework together. That combined effort shows whether Assist makes quotation work easier. The length of a generated document is not a meaningful measure of success.

Start with an enquiry you understand well

Choose a manageable enquiry with existing notes and a service your business provides regularly. Supply the relevant company information and name the next working step you want to support. This makes it easier to see whether the draft connects the customer’s request with your real offer and prepares a decision your team actually needs to make.

On the Assist page, explore dialogue with company knowledge, dictation, reusable documents and Skills, then create access through the existing start process. Bring the customer enquiry your team intends to handle next. Aim for a reviewable draft that becomes a suitable quotation once your confirmed terms are added, helping you move into the next customer conversation with a clearer basis.

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