The weekly paper and liner order is easy. The hard part of a jan-san distributor's day is everything else. A custodian sends a photo of a broken part off an auto scrubber. A hotel needs refills for an old dispenser model nobody makes anymore. A contractor emails a 60-line list from their last supplier and asks you to beat it. A school business office wants pricing on everything for the summer floor project.
Each one takes skilled time, and slow answers send customers elsewhere. The app gives you three tools to handle them faster.
AI Quick Quote
AI Quick Quote lets a customer say or type what they need in plain words and get a priced quote back. They can voice it, type it or paste it, or upload or snap a picture of an invoice, packing slip or spreadsheet. It works with your part numbers, competitors' part numbers, sizes, brands and quantities, finds the items, prices them and puts them in the cart.
Some real examples from the jan-san world:
- A head custodian types "6 cases of 40x46 black liners, 4 cases of roll towels for the brown dispensers, 2 gallons of neutral floor cleaner."
- A contractor snaps a photo of last month's invoice from another distributor and asks for the same items.
- A school's facility manager talks into the phone: "summer floor project, I need stripper, finish, black stripping pads and new mop heads for six schools."
Quick Quote re-check then re-checks any line still being matched against the competitor's full description and updates on screen, and every crossed line shows their invoice text and full description next to your item. The customer can see why each match was made, which matters when the product is a chemical their staff is trained on.
Get this for me
Some items aren't in your catalog: a squeegee blade for a specific auto scrubber, a refill for a discontinued dispenser, a specialty chemical. Get this for me lets a customer ask for anything they don't see. They can take a photo, ideally of the manufacturer's box and part number, and the request goes to your purchasing team and comes back as a quote. The customer, their rep and your team all get a copy.
Reps can also order special items themselves. When a building manager asks for something unusual during a visit, the rep can buy it directly or send it to purchasing, right from the field.
The email quote desk
Many jan-san RFQs still arrive by email: an annual supply list from a school district, a bid sheet from a property manager, a startup list for a contractor's new building. The email quote desk prices quotes requested by email and answers them. Your team reviews the pricing rather than typing it all in.
Odd-item quotes are where jan-san distributors earn trust. The customer who finds you can get the scrubber part or the old dispenser refill keeps sending you their paper, liners and chemicals. Faster quoting also means your inside team can handle more requests without adding staff, and spend their time where it counts: helping customers pick the right floor finish, set up a dilution system or plan a new building startup.
Quotes also become a growth signal. A contractor who keeps asking for equipment parts is telling you they need a better source for floor machine service. A school asking about a new disinfectant may be revisiting its whole chemical program. When requests come in through the app, your team can see those patterns and follow up, instead of losing them in a busy inbox.
Want to see your own jan-san catalog in it? See how it works.