A buyer asks on WhatsApp: "If we increase the quantity, can you reduce the price?" A sales rep may answer yes to keep the lead warm, then discover that the concession exceeds their authority or destroys the deal's margin. The useful response is neither a flat rejection nor an early promise. It is a review with a clear decision owner and next step.
Find out what is behind the discount request
Before changing a price, ask what is driving the decision. Is the buyer comparing quotes, working within a fixed budget, genuinely increasing the order or looking for different payment terms? Not every price objection requires a lower unit price.
Consider a hypothetical office equipment supplier. The buyer offers a larger quantity in return for a discount, but the additional units need delivery to two sites. A concession calculated only against selling price may increase revenue while reducing contribution margin once product and fulfillment costs are included.
Approval authority matters more than reply speed
A practical internal policy can distinguish an approved price a rep may quote, an exception requiring sales-manager approval and a change affecting margin or contract terms that requires finance or management review. This is a suggested control framework, not a claim about automatic software features.
Microsoft's guidance for creating and editing sales quotes describes drafting and revising quotations before sending them to customers. The transferable principle is to keep a reviewed quote version rather than treating an informal chat promise as the approved commercial document. This does not imply that the company uses that system or that Mr. AI integrates with it.
Give the approver a decision-ready request
An internal request saying "the buyer wants a discount" is not enough. Include the product and quantity, current approved price, requested concession, known fulfillment costs, buyer's reason, decision deadline and any additional conditions such as prepayment or delivery timing. Mark missing information as unconfirmed.
Never describe an exception as approved before the authorized decision. And do not advertise a special price as universally available when it depends on quantity, timing or specific approval.
A WhatsApp response that keeps the conversation alive
"I can review the best available offer for that quantity. The current approved price is the one in your quotation. Any additional discount needs a review based on quantity and delivery terms. I'll confirm the outcome before we change the figures."
If approved, issue a revised quotation with a clear version, date, validity period and conditions. If declined, offer only genuine alternatives permitted by the business, such as a different quantity or delivery schedule. See our B2B quotation workflow for the broader process and multi-approver buying guide when the approval bottleneck sits with the customer.
What should management measure?
Track discount requests that received a decision, time to approval, quotations revised after being sent and expected contribution margin on accepted deals. More closed orders are not necessarily better if every extra sale sacrifices its margin through unplanned concessions.
Where Mr. AI can help
Mr. AI can answer from approved company information, collect conversation context and route sensitive decisions to a human team. This does not claim automatic discount approval, margin calculation or quote repricing without verified configuration. Test your discount-request workflow through the customer experience or book a demo.
