The most common mistake on incoming quote requests

I answer most of the inbound quote requests at IBC Denver. After about three hundred of them, I noticed that eight out of ten requests are missing the same piece of information: the actual chemical (or product) the customer plans to put in the tote. Without that, I cannot give them a confident quote, so my first reply is almost always a clarifying question, which costs everybody about a day of back-and-forth.

I want to make a small public service announcement about what to include when you write to us (or to any other reconditioner) with a quote request.

The five things that turn an inquiry into a quote

First, the chemical or product name. "Corn syrup" or "ferric chloride" or "liquid fertilizer 10-34-0" or "city water." Be specific. The chemical determines the grade of tote you need, the documentation we have to provide, and the wash cycle we have to run.

Second, the concentration (if applicable). "Sodium hypochlorite at 12.5%" is a different conversation from "sodium hypochlorite at 5%." One needs 316 stainless and the other will run in caged composite.

Third, the temperature range. "Ambient" is fine. "Hot fill at 165°F" is different. So is "outdoor storage in Wyoming." We need to know what the tote will actually experience.

Fourth, the quantity and the destination. We can quote one tote going to Boulder. We can quote thirty going to Atlanta. The freight math is very different.

Fifth, whether you have any empty totes you want us to take back. The buy-back side often turns a quote into a much better deal than the customer was expecting.

The thing not to put in the inquiry

Do not put your phone number unless you actively want to be called by someone other than us. We are not going to call you. We will read it, smile, and reply by email. Other suppliers in the bulk-liquid space are slightly less email-only and they will absolutely call. Save yourself the calls.

The form that includes all five questions

The contact form on this site asks for all five of those things plus a couple of others. Most customers fill out maybe four of the five fields and leave one blank. The blank one is usually the chemical/product field, ironically. If you are going to leave one field blank, please leave the message field blank instead — we can usually figure out the rest.