Replying to potential trades people

[StillRunningWithScissors]

Hello,

We are currently having tradespeople around to quote on a large job.

One of the people that has come around to quote has turned out to be someone that we won't be going ahead with, due to a different approach to the job than we would like (stating that deciding certain things in advance aren't worth it, as things change so much, etc.) We have a detailed spec to quote to, and they seem reluctant to stick to it.

This is fine, just not how we want to work.

We don't want to waste their time quoting on the job, but are struggling how to say, thanks, but don't quote. What reason can we give/how can we state it to avoid bad feeling, not causing any offence?

Any ideas?

Thanks

I'd still get their quote as a comparison to others. I guess you could always contact them and say you have just agreed to hire someone else, or are having to postpone the work so don't bother quoting. Another approach would be to pay them for the quote if you are feeling guilty

I would go ahead with the quote, but it is a very big job, will take them a lot of time to prepare the quote (hours), so don't want to mess them around, or incur the cost of paying them when we know we aren't going to use them.

Thanks for your reply!

"Thanks for coming out to discuss the project today. I think it's obvious we have quite different approaches to the work we need done, so I think we will be better off working with a different tradesperson. Thanks again for coming, I just wanted to make sure you didn't waste your time on a quote."

I bet you a tenner he never sends a quote anyway

Thanks for the suggestion, will pass it to DH (he's writing the email).
:-)

Yeah I was going to say he probably won't quote. In my experience I am always chasing for quotes and asking if they are interested.

But yes it's better to say we think the relationship won't work.