Quoting from a voice note: how it works and where it fails

A quote drafted from a voice note is a transcription, a lookup against your own catalog and contacts, and a quote written in the style of your previous quotes, saved as a draft for you to read. In Combdex the one doing it is Dex, the assistant. It is not a machine that knows your trade; it is a machine that knows your data. That distinction is the whole guide, because everything it gets right comes from the data and everything it gets wrong comes from the gap between what you said and what the data holds.

What happens between the note and the draft?

I open Dex on the phone, tap the microphone in the composer standing at the gate and say something like: "Quote for the Hendersons on Maple, replace the failed slide operator with the LA500, reuse the existing loops and photo eyes, new control wiring to the board, no concrete."

Five things happen, in order.

1. Transcription. The audio becomes text, and the text lands in the composer, not in a send. I read what the machine heard before Dex acts on it, then send it.
2. Contact match. "The Hendersons on Maple" is looked up in my contacts. One match is linked. Two matches, and Dex asks me which one before it drafts anything. No match, and the card offers to add the contact.
3. Catalog match. "Replace the failed slide operator with the LA500" is matched to my catalog line "Gate operator replacement, furnished and installed", which carries the description I wrote once: operator, mounting hardware, limit setup, safety device integration, programming, test. "Reuse the existing loops and photo eyes" is matched to my labour line for reconnecting existing safety devices. "New control wiring" is matched to the control wiring line.
4. The rest of the quote, in my style: "No concrete work" into the comments, my default tax rate, my default terms, an expiry date.
5. A card, in the chat, with the contact, the lines and the prices. I press Create quote, and Combdex saves a draft quote and opens it. The draft has no number yet; the number comes when I publish. Not sent. Never sent by Dex.

I read it, correct the wire quantity, add the deposit to the payment schedule (Dex does not set the schedule), and press Publish. The quote then behaves like any other: a link, a signature, a locked accepted version (sending, acceptance and signature).

What does it get right, and why?

The things that are lookups. My prices, because they are in the catalog. My descriptions, because I wrote them once and the catalog carries them. My contacts. My tax rate and my terms, because they are defaults. The way my quotes are worded, because Dex has a memory of how my company writes: a company profile, plus what he learns in conversation, journaled and consolidated overnight (memory, briefing and privacy).

That is why the draft reads like one of mine and not like a generic estimate. It is built from mine.

Where does it fail?

Four places, and I have hit all four.

1. The product is not in the catalog

I said "and the new reader on the pedestrian gate, about five hundred", and I had never quoted that reader. Dex can only match what I sell. The draft had a line at the five hundred I said, and nothing on the card told me the catalog had no price for it. That silence is the failure to watch for today: a spoken price on an unmatched line looks exactly like a catalog price. The fix was not a better assistant; it was adding the reader to the catalog with its description and price. The first week with Dex, for me, was tidying the catalog, and the voice notes got better every day I did it.

2. I mumbled the number

"Three hundred feet" and "thirty feet" are a syllable apart in a wind. On a power run that syllable is most of the invoice. I read the transcript before I send it, and every quantity on the draft, every time, and so should you. Dex is not the thing to trust with a number; the draft is the place to check it.

3. I did not say the exclusions

Dex writes what I said, in the way I usually say it. He does not add the sentence about landscaping repair not being included, because I did not say it. If the exclusions are not in the note they are not in the draft, and the exclusions are what stop the dispute. My habit now is to end every note with "not included:" and the list, so it lands in the comments where the customer reads it.

4. The contact does not exist yet

A new customer with no contact is not matched, because there is nothing to match. A quote in Combdex always belongs to a contact, so the card offers Add contact with the name, phone and email I said, and I confirm it. When the call already produced a lead, I open Dex from that contact instead, and the contact is pinned to the conversation. Dex matches contacts; he does not guess people.

What it should never do, and does not

Send. A quote is a promise about scope and money, and a person makes that promise. Dex in Combdex saves a draft and stops. Publishing and sending are mine, and that is a rule of the whole assistant: every consequential action is a card you approve (what Dex can do).

He also does not browse the web, does not see another company's data, and reads my records under the same permissions I have. When I do not want a conversation remembered, Incognito journals nothing. Those are not features I asked for; they are the reasons I was willing to give him my quotes.

When is it worth it?

When the catalog is good and the job is one you have quoted before. A service call with three lines, a standard operator swap, a station replacement: the draft is right or nearly right, and reading it takes less time than typing it. The value is not that Dex is clever; it is that I am standing at the gate with the customer, and the quote is on their phone before I leave.

When the job is new, unusual, or has a scope that needs thinking about, I write it by hand (writing a quote). Dex is for the quotes I have already written a hundred times, not the one I need to think about.

A habit that makes the drafts better

Say the note the way the quote should read. Name the contact and the address. Name the products as they are in the catalog. Say "reuse" or "replace" for every existing device. End with "not included:" and the list. Then set the deposit on the draft yourself. Dex writes what you said; the better you say it, the less you fix.

The AI quote page covers the capability, and quote from a voice note is the step-by-step. The quoting guide is the structure the draft should end up in, whoever wrote it, and the Dex app page covers everything else he does.