How to reduce quote and survey costs when fuel prices rise

The cost of a single quote for made-to-measure products has never been negligible: it includes the sales rep or technician's travel, the hours dedicated to the site survey, the time to prepare the offer, often the samples brought along. For most SMEs selling custom products, the conversion rate from quote to order sits between 20% and 35%. The majority of quotes produced generate no revenue.

In 2026 this cost has grown on two fronts simultaneously.

The first is fuel. The Strait of Hormuz crisis triggered the most severe disruption to global oil supplies in fifty years, with direct effects on diesel prices across Europe. For a sales rep driving 50-100 km for each site survey, the impact on margins is immediate.

The second is less visible but equally real: geopolitical and economic instability has made customers more cautious. Decision times lengthen, unanswered quote requests increase, projects get postponed. The sales rep travels more to close less.

If the energy crisis persists and governments introduce measures to curb fuel consumption, many companies will need to rethink their sales process. But this can also be an opportunity.

For those selling kitchens, windows, stairs, pergolas, contract furniture, custom metalwork or nautical fit-outs, the in-person site survey is almost always an essential stage of the sales process. Measurements need verifying, the context needs seeing, and the relationship with the customer is also built in person.

The problem isn't the site survey itself. It's that in most SMEs the site survey is the first real point of contact with the customer. The sales rep sets off without knowing whether the budget matches the product, whether the room dimensions are compatible, or whether the requested variants are feasible. Information gathering and product presentation happen on the same trip.

If the customer could explore the product first (choose variants, enter approximate dimensions, see a price indication), the sales rep would know before setting off whether the deal makes sense. The site survey doesn't disappear: it shifts from first step to final step, when both parties already have the essential information.

The trips that remain become targeted visits to already-qualified customers. The ones eliminated are trips that would never have produced an order in any case.

CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote. CPQ software is often also called a configurator. It is software that guides the user through configuring a product while respecting the company's real rules (possible combinations, technical constraints, variant dependencies, up-to-date price list) and generates a quote in real time.

The value of a CPQ doesn't lie in the technology. It lies in the fact that the product configuration rules (this frame goes with that glass, this dimension has that price, this accessory excludes that other one) currently live in the head of the most experienced sales rep or in an Excel spreadsheet nobody else knows how to use. The CPQ makes them explicit, shareable, and accessible even to the end customer.

CPQ software can be used, depending on the company's preferences, in several ways.

Remotely, self-service. The sales rep sends a link to the customer. The customer configures the product, selects variants, enters approximate dimensions. The system calculates a price range. If the budget aligns, the deal proceeds with concrete information. If not, both parties find out without anyone having travelled.

On a video call. The sales rep opens the configurator via screen sharing and configures together with the customer in real time. At the end of the call, the customer receives a link to the saved configuration. It's the functional equivalent of the first meeting, without the trip.

In the showroom, in person. If the customer had already started a configuration remotely, the same session continues in store. No information lost, no starting from scratch. The salesperson sees what the customer has already explored and which price range they were considering.

The transition between modes is seamless. A link with the saved configuration state is all it takes.

The energy crisis makes this kind of software and this reorganization of the sales process more worthwhile than ever. Travel costs will continue to weigh heavily, customer uncertainty won't resolve soon. Companies that manage to qualify deals before travelling aren't just saving on fuel: they're building a more sustainable sales process, also reducing quoting errors and the time spent writing them.

But there's a further aspect. If travel decreases and remote work returns in force (as it did in 2020 and as current fuel-saving measures suggest), the first contact between customer and company increasingly happens online. The customer doesn't visit three showrooms: they visit one, and the first filter happens from the computer. For an SME selling made-to-measure products, investing in online visibility becomes hard to postpone: the risk is being excluded from the customer's decision process before even having the chance to present yourself.

A configurator accessible from the company website, allowing the customer to explore the product and get a price indication, becomes in this context an important pre-qualification tool: not just for filtering deals, but for capturing them. Those who aren't visible and usable online risk not making it onto the shortlist of suppliers to evaluate.