Your best salespeople are spending hours assembling quotes that should take minutes. They're copying data between systems, chasing approvals, checking pricing sheets, and formatting documents. None of that is selling.
This is the admin tax. And it's costing you more than you think.
The real cost of slow quoting
When a quote takes three days instead of 15 minutes, the cost isn't just time. It's momentum. The buyer's attention moves on. Competitors respond faster. Internal champions lose the energy they had coming out of that great meeting.
Most sales leaders know this intuitively. But few have quantified it. In the teams we work with, slow quoting is typically the single biggest source of lost deals that never show up in the CRM as "lost." They just go quiet.
Where AI fits
AI doesn't replace your quoting process. It accelerates the parts that slow it down:
- Product configuration. AI can suggest configurations based on the customer's profile and conversation history, cutting the "what do we actually quote them?" decision from hours to seconds.
- Pricing logic. Instead of hunting through spreadsheets or waiting for a pricing manager, AI applies your rules consistently and flags exceptions for approval.
- Document generation. The quote document itself, formatted, branded, and ready to send, can be assembled automatically from the configured deal.
Where to start
You don't need a custom AI platform to get started. Most teams can cut quoting time by 50% or more with a focused two-week implementation sprint using tools they already have.
The key is starting with your actual quoting workflow, not a technology wish list. Map the steps, identify the bottlenecks, and apply AI where it removes the most friction.
That's what we do in our Sales Operations Audit. Two weeks, a clear picture of where time is being wasted, and a practical plan to fix it.