A little over a month ago I, Barry, introduced myself as a new addition to Creek Plastics. I shared with you my extensive sales experience spanning two different centuries.
(That sounds impressive doesn’t it?)

Well now that I have better than a month under my belt, I have, of course, completely mastered all things relating to plastic and particularly HDPE pipe.
(High Density Polyethylene…….OK I had to spell check Polyethylene)

My first impression was that it has to be super easy to generate quotes for pipe. How big around? What color? How many feet? … Simple right? Well let me tell you, after a month of learning that, we need this, or you forgot that, or we need to find out this. Or my personal favorite, “How are we supposed to know______ (fill in the blank)?”, I realized it’s not as easy as I thought.

So for my own personal benefit I have decided to make a list of all things necessary to generate an accurate quote first time, every time. On the outside chance you might be reading this and are in need of a quote now or in the future, I thought I would share my list with you!

To start, we need:

Company name
Contact person
Address
Phone Number
FAX ….. never mind, nobody FAX’s anymore!
Email

Most people have that stuff already set up in their auto signature email account. Which is perfect so we don’t have to type that info every time.

OK so here we go with “the rest of the story”

To get you, our valued customers, the best and quickest quote possible, we request the following:

  1. City or Project Name.
  2. Shipping destination with ZIP CODE. (For quoting sake we don’t need a street address.)
  3. Size of pipe. ( 3/4 inch -1 inch – 1 1/4 inch – 1 1/2 inch – 2 inch – 3 inch – 4 inch)
  4. SDR needed. (Standard Dimension Ratio 11 or 13.5 in most cases)
  5. Sometimes SIDR is needed. (“I” stands for “Inside” – I bet you guessed that!)
  6. Color of pipe, plain or striped. (Currently we stripe 1 1/4 and smaller, but stay tuned on that!)
  7. Is the pipe “empty” or does it have pull tape inserted?
  8. Total number of feet needed.
  9. If a specific number of feet are needed on a reel.
  10. If a specific reel size is needed.
  11. When the quote is needed by.
  12. When the pipe is needed by (Delivery date).


Regarding item 11, it is our goal to turn around quotes in 24 hours or less. Since I have been tracking our performance (late April to date) we have accomplished this 97% of the time. Our goal is to be at 100% and still allow for “hot” requests, or as I like to call them “Plastic Pipe Pricing Emergencies” (PPPE).

Alright. I think these dozen items can get us an accurate quote. Anything I forgot I will share directly beneath this paragraph.

I look forward to working with you. And as always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a shout at barry@creekplastics.com or by phone: (517) 423-1177. Have a wonderful day!