Texcraft Quotes in Less Than 15 Minutes with Paperless Parts

Background

Texcraft Inc. was founded in 1976 in Lubbock, Texas by Max Neal and began as a manufacturer of adjustable motor bases. In 2002, Texcraft was purchased by Max’s daughter, Pam Hufstedler, who now serves as the company’s president. Today, the company maintains its initial business of manufacturing motor bases, though the majority of its work is done as a Job Shop specializing in metal fabrication for a diverse range of industries, including agriculture, automotive, and construction. Texcraft’s success in metal fabrication led to the transition from its initial 5,000 square feet facility to today’s 35,000 square feet facility.

Challenge

Texcraft’s team includes numerous estimators, each of whom was using Excel spreadsheets for the quoting process. Pam saw how this lack of centralization led to considerable inefficiencies between estimators. “Our estimators never had access to one another’s quotes, so if one person was out and had to have their customers taken care of, someone had to access that person’s computer and database,” says Pam. “We just didn’t have the ability to share that information.”

With each estimator taking a different approach to the quoting process, Pam also questioned how she would be able to hire and train new estimators. “One estimator was using one version of an Excel spreadsheet, and another estimator tweaked that spreadsheet to make it his own,” Pam says. “If I were to hire a new estimator, which model would I train them on?”

On top of the inconsistency between estimators, Texcraft also faced the challenge of having to continuously re-quote parts. Each time a customer would request a new quote for a different quantity, one of Texcraft’s estimators would have to re-quote from scratch in spite of the parts themselves being unchanged. All of this unnecessary time spent re-quoting meant time taken away from quoting other jobs.

In an effort to resolve these difficulties, Pam began searching for a solution that would save her and her estimators valuable time and ensure that everyone was working on one centralized system. For a full year, Pam and her team tried their first software solution, though the training on the platform was very poor and the company offered virtually no customer support, resulting in Texcraft never even sending out a quote to a customer using the software.

Solution

After implementing the first software solution without success, Pam discovered Paperless Parts through her network and was instantly drawn to its centralized, easy-to-use platform. As the team began quoting in Paperless Parts, they immediately started saving time, particularly on large quotes containing many different parts. Rather than having to re-quote parts, Paperless Parts now gives Texcraft the ability to quickly access and use past quotes.

Pam herself was a novice estimator when Texcraft first implemented Paperless Parts and was delighted by how quickly and easily she was able to start using the software. She now feels comfortable bringing on new estimators, as Paperless Parts’ user-friendly platform and extensive customer support give her the confidence that the software will close the skills gap on her team. “I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to train our incoming estimator on the Paperless Parts Platform,” Pam says.

Texcraft’s customers have greatly benefited from Paperless Parts’ digital quote experience. “As a business owner, one aspect of Paperless Parts that resonated with me from the very beginning was the high-quality presentation of the quotes to our customers,” says Pam. Since implementing Paperless Parts, Texcraft has received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the quality of its quotes. Moreover, Pam and her team are able to easily customize their quotes based on their customers’ preferences. Paperless Parts is flexible enough that they can choose to include extensive details and visuals for customers who want them, or else just include a few line items for those that prefer more succinct quotes.

Customers are even more enthusiastic about the rapid turnaround times they get on Texcraft’s quotes. One customer, for example, requested a quote for a part at several different quantities. Within just a few minutes of receiving the request, Pam turned a quote around to the customer complete with different options for pricing that gave him the ability to facilitate the order himself and make a decision in less than a minute. He called Pam to say how impressed he was with the speed of the entire process; the quote was created and received with the order placed all within just 15 minutes.

Results

Using Paperless Parts, Texcraft:

• Decreased quote turnaround time: Texcraft went from having to manually re-quote parts on a regular basis to turning around accurate quotes within 15 minutes.
• Established consistency in the quoting process: Texcraft transitioned from its estimators using dated spreadsheets with various approaches to a uniform, centralized system.
• Expanded its team: Consistency in the quoting process coupled with Paperless Parts’ intuitive platform enables Pam to bring new, less experienced estimators onto her team.
• Customized quotes: Paperless Parts’ flexible software allows Texcraft to produce professional quotes catered to the preferences of their customers, including comprehensive, visually-oriented quotes for certain customers and minimal, succinct quotes for others.

“The Paperless Parts software turned me into an estimator.” – Pam Hufstedler, President