The value of a Conservatory Ball Park Figure?

Is there really any value in a conservatory Ball Park Figure?

There’s not a day goes past when we are not asked “Please can you provide a quote or budget price for a conservatory…” from a rough description over the phone. Quite often followed by “…we only want a ‘ball-park figure, we won’t hold you to it”. When you take into consideration the 30+ main considerations which can have significant effects on price, you might see how difficult it is to come up with a meaningful figure. For a conservatory of the same size and design, depending on the choices, the least costly way of being able to do the project, can be one third of the most expensive option.

So why is this so important?

From the client’s point of view:

Understandably, they are trying to assess the cost and whether it falls into an affordable budget. The client is also trying to assess whether the company providing the budget figure can do so within that budget.

From the Company’s point of view:

Firstly: How do we come up with a meaningful figure? Knowing the cost implications of factors which affect both the cost of the conservatory and the associated building work, it’s a dilemma.

The low budget figure: Knowing that most clients are judging whether to come back to them based upon the response to the ‘ball-park’ question, there is a strong temptation to pitch the figure very low, knowing that it will sound attractive. As a result, they’ll very likely get their salesman’s ‘foot in the door’ and let him/her deal with the reasons why the price is considerably dearer, when he gets into the client’s home.

The safe budget figure: In attempting to be more helpful and more realistic, the company providing a safer, higher budget figure, to take into consideration typical requirements and circumstances, is very likely to be judged too expensive and will never get a call back or opportunity to price the job properly. Interestingly, the company having this approach may well be capable of providing the work at a lower cost, to a higher standard, or both. But the client will never know

The Solution: Take up the company’s offer to quote the work, based upon full information and specifications, usually resulting from a No-Obligation site visit. We will not only provide you with sound advice (all our designers have in excess of 15 years relevant experience of conservatory design), but we will provide 3D visual models and a fully detailed specification of what we are pricing for. Click here to read about Factors affecting price…