The Company

Precision Metalworks LLC is a 45-person CNC machining and fabrication shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They produce precision-machined components for the automotive, aerospace, and medical device industries. The shop runs two shifts across 28 CNC machines, a welding bay, and a finishing department. Owner Tom Brennan started the company in 2008 in a 3,000-square-foot bay. Today they occupy 22,000 square feet and hold AS9100D (aerospace) and ISO 13485 (medical device) certifications.

The office staff consists of Tom, a sales engineer named Patricia Okafor, and a part-time bookkeeper. Patricia handles all quoting, customer communication, and order management. She is, by every practical measure, the entire sales department.

The Challenge

In contract manufacturing, the sales cycle starts with an RFQ — a request for quotation. A buyer calls or emails with specs, quantities, material requirements, and a deadline. The manufacturer who responds fastest with an accurate quote usually wins the work. Speed matters almost as much as price.

Precision Metalworks had a speed problem. Patricia was one person doing the job of three, and she spent a significant portion of her day on the shop floor reviewing parts, checking tolerances, and consulting with machinists about feasibility. When she was on the floor, the office phone rang to voicemail.

The voicemail problem was worse than it appeared. Procurement managers at OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers don’t leave voicemails. They call the next shop on their approved vendor list. By the time Patricia checked messages and called back, the RFQ had often been awarded to a competitor who answered the phone.

“I’d come back from the shop floor, see three missed calls, and know that at least one of those was an RFQ we’ll never see,” Patricia said. “It’s the most frustrating part of my job because I know we can make the part — we just couldn’t answer the phone.”

Tom estimated they were losing 12-15 RFQ opportunities per month. At an average order value of $18,000 and a win rate of roughly 40%, that translated to roughly $86,000 in lost monthly revenue.

The problem also affected quote turnaround. When Patricia did connect with a buyer, she often had to call back after reviewing specs on the shop floor. That back-and-forth added days to the quoting process, pushing their average turnaround to 4.2 days — well above the 2-day window that most buyers preferred.

Why They Chose Help Genie

Tom and Patricia evaluated three options:

• Hiring a sales coordinator would cost $55,000-$65,000/year. But training someone to discuss CNC capabilities, material certifications, and tolerance specs would take 6-12 months. And they still needed Patricia for the actual quoting.
• An answering service could take messages, but procurement managers don’t want to leave messages. They want to discuss specs, confirm capabilities, and know whether a shop can handle their job. A generic message-taker wouldn’t cut it in manufacturing.
• Help Genie’s RFQ handler could be configured with Precision Metalworks’ full capability profile: machine list, material capabilities, certifications, typical tolerances, and standard lead times. It could have an intelligent conversation about an RFQ and capture every detail Patricia needed to start quoting.

The technical depth was what convinced Patricia. She configured the genie with Precision’s capability matrix, and when she tested it by calling in as a buyer asking about 5-axis machining in Inconel 718, the genie responded with their machine capabilities, certification status, and typical lead time. It then asked all the right follow-up questions: quantity, print availability, required finish, and deadline.

“It asked better qualifying questions than half the sales reps I’ve dealt with at other shops,” Tom said.

Implementation

Patricia spent about two hours configuring the voice genie:

1. Capability profile — machine types (3-axis, 4-axis, 5-axis CNC, CNC turning, wire EDM), material capabilities (aluminum, steel, stainless, titanium, Inconel, plastics), and finishing options (anodizing, plating, passivation, powder coating through partners)
2. Certification information — AS9100D, ISO 13485, ITAR registered, NADCAP pending
3. RFQ intake flow — the genie collects part description, material, quantity, tolerance requirements, print/CAD file availability, required delivery date, and buyer contact information
4. Qualification questions — the genie asks whether the buyer has a drawing or solid model, what the annual usage is, and whether this is a new program or an existing part being re-sourced
5. Routing rules — complete RFQs get emailed to Patricia with all captured details formatted for her quoting template. Capability questions get answered immediately. Existing customer order status requests get flagged for Patricia’s callback list

The genie went live on a Tuesday morning. By Thursday, it had captured eight RFQ inquiries that would have gone to voicemail, including a medical device component order from a new customer that turned into a $34,000 first order.

The Results

After five months, the numbers reflected a fundamental shift in how Precision Metalworks captured business.

RFQ Volume

Monthly RFQ captures increased from 42 to 55 — a 30% improvement. The additional RFQs came almost entirely from calls that would have previously gone to voicemail. These weren’t new marketing leads. They were existing demand that Precision was failing to capture.

Quote Turnaround

Average quote turnaround dropped from 4.2 days to 2.1 days. The genie’s structured intake meant Patricia received complete RFQ packages with material, quantity, tolerance, and deadline information already organized. She could start quoting immediately instead of spending 20-30 minutes per inquiry playing phone tag to collect missing details.

Answer Rate

The phone answer rate jumped from 65% to 98%. Procurement managers who called Precision now got an immediate, knowledgeable response regardless of whether Patricia was on the shop floor, in a meeting, or at lunch.

RFQ-to-Quote Conversion

The percentage of captured RFQs that resulted in a formal quote increased from 71% to 89%. The improvement came from better data capture: when the genie collected complete specs upfront, fewer RFQs stalled in the “waiting for additional information” stage.

A Day in the Life

Here’s what a typical day looks like now at Precision Metalworks:

8:15 AM, Wednesday — Patricia arrives and opens her email. Three RFQ packages are waiting from overnight and early morning calls. Each one has a structured summary: part description, material, quantity, tolerances, drawing availability, delivery date, and complete buyer contact info. She starts quoting the first one immediately.

10:30 AM — Patricia is on the shop floor reviewing a prototype run with the lead machinist. The office phone rings. The genie answers: a procurement specialist from an aerospace Tier 1 supplier is looking for a source for titanium Ti-6Al-4V brackets, 500 pieces, AS9100D required. The genie confirms Precision’s titanium capability, AS9100D certification, and typical lead time. It captures all specs and sends Patricia a complete RFQ package.

12:45 PM — During lunch, a buyer from a medical device company calls to ask whether Precision can hold plus-or-minus 0.0005 inches on a turned Kovar component. The genie confirms their CNC turning capability and tolerance range, then asks about quantity, annual usage, and whether the buyer has a print. The buyer emails a PDF drawing to the intake address the genie provides.

2:20 PM — An existing customer calls to check on an order status. The genie recognizes this isn’t an RFQ, captures the PO number and customer name, and adds it to Patricia’s callback list flagged as “order status inquiry.” Patricia calls back at 3 PM with the update.

4:50 PM — Patricia has quoted four RFQs today. Before Help Genie, she would have quoted two at most — the other two would still be in the “call back to get specs” pile. She sends all four quotes before 5 PM.

7:30 PM — After hours. A buyer at a defense contractor calls about a rush job: 200 stainless steel housings needed in three weeks. The genie captures every detail, confirms Precision’s stainless capability and ITAR registration, and emails Patricia a high-priority RFQ package. She sees it on her phone, starts roughing out the quote on her laptop, and sends it by 9 PM. The buyer responds by 10 AM Thursday with a PO. First quote in wins.

What’s Next

Precision Metalworks is expanding the voice genie to:

• Order status updates — connecting to the ERP system so the genie can give existing customers real-time updates on their orders without Patricia making callbacks
• Capability marketing — the genie proactively mentions new capabilities (they’re adding wire EDM next quarter) to callers in relevant industries
• Repeat order intake — allowing existing customers to place repeat orders by referencing previous PO numbers

“In manufacturing, we spend hundreds of thousands on machines and certifications to be capable of doing the work,” Tom said. “Then we lose the work because nobody answered the phone. The genie fixed the most expensive problem in our business, and it cost less per month than a set of cutting tools.”

Ready to capture every RFQ that comes your way? See how Help Genie works for manufacturers or explore our manufacturing solutions.