Blog/Which customers to call first when drywall or insulation prices are going up

Which customers to call first when drywall or insulation prices are going up

Oct 288 min read

When a gypsum or insulation maker announces a price increase, how dealer reps decide which quotes, jobs and accounts to contact before it takes effect.

Sales Strategy
Which customers to call first when drywall or insulation prices are going up

When a gypsum or insulation manufacturer announces a price increase, the reps who act first call the customers with decisions still open. Start with open quotes that include the affected products, then contractors with awarded jobs that still have material to ship, then regular buyers of those categories and customers who are pricing new bids. Before any call, confirm how your dealership will apply the change. Then give each customer the facts that affect their work and ask for one clear decision before the effective date.

This guide is for outside and inside sales reps and sales managers at drywall and insulation dealers, and at multi-category dealers that sell board, finishing products and insulation to contractors. Deciding your dealership's own prices, margins and quote policy is a management decision and is not covered here. The task here is the sales follow-up: choosing who to contact, what to ask for and how to keep the business.

Read the notice for the details that change the sale

Manufacturer letters are short, but a few details decide what you can tell a customer.

The effective date and what it applies to. USG's April 10, 2026 letter raised prices "effective with shipments on and after May 11th, 2026." Johns Manville's May 12, 2026 fiberglass notice applied to "all orders shipped on or after June 29, 2026, regardless of the date of order placement." In both cases the trigger is the ship date. An order placed before the effective date but shipped after it may carry the new cost, so do not tell a contractor that ordering early protects the price until your dealership confirms how it will handle those orders.

The products covered. USG's letter listed wallboard, joint compound, texture, plaster, bead and trim. Johns Manville's notice listed batts, rolls and loosefill blowing wool at 6 percent, and a separate April 2026 notice put several mineral wool products up 8 percent from June 15. Negwer's summary of a CertainTeed Gypsum notice gave increases of up to 20 percent on one board line and up to 30 percent on the rest. The product list tells you which customers to look up.

Conditions that limit what you can offer. Johns Manville reserved the right to "monitor all orders placed between now and the date of increase and limit quantities if necessary." National Gypsum's May 1, 2026 bulletin reaffirmed "our ongoing policy prohibiting the quotation of individual jobs." A rep who promises job pricing or unlimited early orders without checking these terms creates a problem the dealership may not be able to fix.

In the dated 2026 letters cited here, notice ran from about four to nine weeks. That is enough time for a plan, but not if the first week goes by before anyone looks at the customer list. Notices also keep coming. Cameron Ashley's price notice page lists manufacturer increases with effective dates in November 2026 and January 2027.

Confirm your dealership's answer first

Before calling anyone, get answers from your sales manager or purchasing team:

  • Will your prices to customers change, and from what date?
  • How will open quotes that include affected products be handled?
  • Will orders placed before the date but shipped after it be priced at the old or new cost?
  • Are deposits, early releases or held orders allowed, and for which accounts?

Dealers answer these differently. In a 2022 LBM Journal reader survey on unexpected price increases, anonymous dealer respondents described holding quotes for five or seven days, holding a builder's pricing until framing was complete within 90 days, and asking for deposits on upcoming projects. None of those is a standard. Use your own dealership's rules, and give every rep the same answer so customers do not hear different versions from different people.

Build the call list from what customers actually buy

The notice names products. Your ERP history tells you which customers buy them. Pull the accounts that bought the affected categories over a recent period, the open quotes that include those products and the jobs that still have material scheduled. Add who owns each account and when each customer last heard from you.

Connected sales data helps here. SalesJack Analytics maps product classes into key categories so your team can see which customers buy board, finishing products or insulation. The SalesJack CRM brings connected quotes and customer and jobsite information into one sales view, and reps can ask Radar plain-English questions about their own account data. SalesJack does not watch manufacturer price notices or alert you to them. Your team decides which categories and dates matter, then uses the data to find the customers.

Sort customers by what is still undecided

A customer who already took delivery has nothing left to decide. Sort the rest by the decision still open.

  1. Open quotes with affected products. These are the most urgent. One LBM Journal respondent put it plainly: "Once you are notified of a price increase, you have to review with your staff all open quotes for these products and update customers accordingly." Call with the quote in hand, explain what changes under your dealership's policy and ask for a decision. Our guide to following up on quotes without losing the job context covers keeping each version current and naming an owner.
  2. Awarded jobs with material still to ship. A drywall contractor working through a multi-building job may have board and finishing products scheduled for months. Ask for the release schedule and whether any phase is ready to move up. Some contractors also have escalation terms with their own customers, and early notice gives them time to use them. Stephen Shepps of Schaedler Yesco, an electrical distributor, told tEDmag in 2018 that fast notice let contractors "expedite order releases on other pending projects," and he assumed some orders closed faster as a result. That is a different industry, so treat it as one distributor's experience.
  3. Contractors who are pricing new bids. An insulation contractor or remodeler who is bidding work now needs current material numbers, or the job loses money after it is won. Ask which bids are out, when they will be awarded and whether you can quote the material. This group often produces new quotes.
  4. Regular buyers with no open quote or job on file. A contractor who buys batts or joint compound every week will notice the change on the next invoice. A short call or message before that invoice means they hear it from you first, with time to plan. Ask about upcoming jobs while you are on the phone.

Within each group, start with the largest open value and the jobs closest to their next delivery. Smaller regular buyers can hear from you through a targeted email or text. The SalesJack platform for drywall and insulation dealers builds those lists from ERP purchase data, which leaves the reps' call time for the first three groups.

What to say and what to ask for

Lead with facts. Name the products, the effective date and what it means for this customer's open quote or job. If your dealership shares manufacturer letters with customers, bring the one that applies. Then ask for one specific decision:

  • Approve or revise the open quote.
  • Confirm the release dates for the remaining phases.
  • Tell you which bids are out and when they close.

Here is an illustrative example. A drywall dealer receives a board notice five weeks before the effective date. The rep's list shows one contractor with an open quote for a medical office interior, a second phase of a townhome job scheduled for next month and two remodelers who bought joint compound every week this year. The rep calls the first contractor about the quote, asks the second whether the townhome phase is ready to release under the dealership's early-order rule and sends the remodelers a short message with the date and an offer to price their next jobs.

Avoid three mistakes. Do not promise a price hold, job price or early-order protection your dealership has not approved. Do not push a customer to buy more than the job needs. Johns Manville's notice shows a manufacturer may limit quantities, and jobsite storage and readiness are the contractor's call. And do not wait for the customer to find the change on an invoice.

Record each answer and review after the date

Log every conversation against the account, quote or job with the decision and the next date. Use CRM assignments and reminders for anything still open before the effective date, such as a contractor who will confirm a release after a site meeting.

After the date, review the results. Which open quotes became orders, which were lost and why? Our guide to reviewing lost quotes covers learning from those decisions. Then compare the following weeks' purchases in the affected categories against the accounts on your list. A regular buyer whose board or insulation purchases drop soon after an increase may be testing another supplier, and that account deserves a call before the habit sets in.

If you want to see how connected quotes and category purchase history could support this process, you can book a SalesJack demo.

Sources

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