PetGroomBossPro Blog — Online Booking & Quotes

Grooming Estimate Templates for the Quotes You Write Every Week

After a few months of sending estimates, most groomers notice that they are writing the same handful over and over. The matted doodle first visit. The three-dog household. The giant breed. The monthly pet day for a community. Each time, you pick the same services, write a similar description and tweak the price. Templates let you skip the blank page.

Templates Start Where Follow-Ups Leave Off

The last article, Estimate Follow-Up Emails for Groomers: Nudging Customers Who Have Not Answered, ended with a point about wording: once you find an estimate description that customers understand and approve, you want to reuse it. That is exactly what templates are for.

In PetGroomBossPro, a template is a saved starting point for an estimate. You pick it, fill in the pets and the details for this customer, adjust what needs adjusting, and send. Everything still comes from your service list, so the prices match the rest of your business.

Templates Worth Building

Every grooming business is different, but these come up for most mobile groomers:

• Matted coat, first visit. Full groom plus de-matting, with a description that explains the first visit is priced for the coat condition and later visits on a schedule would be standard pricing.
• Multi-pet household. Several pets on one visit, with a line explaining the price assumes all pets on the same visit.
• Giant breed. Full groom or bath & brush priced for a Giant dog, with any add-ons you commonly include, like a de-shed treatment.
• Monthly pet day. For senior living communities, doggy daycares or apartment communities, priced per pet, with a description of how the day works and a note that billing is one monthly statement.
• Holiday groom. If you run a busy season, a template for the one-time holiday groom with a bow or bandana add-on.

What Goes Into a Good Template

A template is only as good as the estimate it is based on. When you build one, think about the parts that stay the same from customer to customer:

• The services. Picked from your list, in the order the customer will read them.
• The description. Plain sentences explaining what the price covers and what could change it.
• Common add-ons. Included if most customers in this situation want them; left off if not.

Leave out anything specific to one customer. The pet's name, breed, size and cut notes get filled in each time. A template full of somebody else's dog details is a mistake waiting to happen.

Templates and Pricing Consistency

One quiet benefit of templates is that they keep your quotes consistent. Without them, it is easy for the matted doodle estimate to come out a little different every time depending on how tired you are. Customers talk, especially in neighborhoods where you groom several homes. Starting from the same template every time means two similar dogs get similar quotes.

That also matters when someone else in your business writes estimates. If you have office help, templates let them quote the common jobs the way you would, without asking you every time.

Keeping Templates Up to Date

Templates use your service list, but descriptions and line choices are saved in the template. When something changes in your business, review your templates:

• Price changes. When you raise prices, check that each template still reflects how you want to quote. The article Raising Grooming Prices: Updating the Booking Page, Estimates and Recurring Clients covers this.
• New services. If you add a new add-on that belongs in a common quote, add it to the template.
• Wording that confuses people. If customers keep asking the same question after reading an estimate, the description needs work.

A short review every few months is usually enough.

From Template to Approved Job

Once you send an estimate from a template, it works like any other. The customer approves it online. The approved estimate becomes the job, with the pet details carried over. If they do not respond, the follow-up emails remind them. Then you put the job on the schedule, or set up a repeat schedule with Add Recurring Grooming.

Templates do not change what the customer sees in any way they would notice. They just make the estimate faster for you to write and more consistent from one customer to the next.

Templates Versus the Booking Page

If you find one template getting used dozens of times a month for a simple job, ask whether that job belongs on the booking page instead. A standard bath & brush for a Large dog does not need an estimate; the booking page can price it instantly. Save templates for the jobs that genuinely need a written explanation.

For the rest of the booking and quoting tools, visit the pet grooming booking software page.