A pilot only means something if there is a defensible counterfactual behind it. A counterfactual is a plain answer to one thing: what would probably have happened without this. Without it, a good quarter proves nothing and a bad quarter proves nothing either.

The strongest version is a split inside one shop. Qualifying unsold estimates go into two comparable groups. Your normal process works one group, the Kopikat process works the other, and the two get compared at thirty, sixty and ninety days on recovered gross profit, recovered dollars per follow up hour, and the share of estimates that reached a real ending.

That split is offered, not imposed. It is the cleanest evidence available and this firm will make the case for it, but nobody is going to ask you to hold work back from your own business so an experiment looks tidier. Where a split does not suit the operation, the comparison comes from your own history, from matched groups of estimates, from a staggered rollout across teams, from opportunities the process never touched, or from the record on individual estimates. The measurement serves the business. The business does not serve the measurement.

What gets compared is gross profit, not top line. A fifteen thousand dollar replacement is not fifteen thousand dollars of profit. The figure that matters is the additional gross profit reasonably attributable to the recovery process, set against what this firm costs. Where you can supply your own margins, that is the number in the report.

Same shop. Same season. Same crew. Same customers calling in. If the process does not beat the shop's own baseline, the report says so, and the monthly fee has not earned its keep.

The managed path is for owners who want this firm to stay responsible after launch. Kopikat Research builds the system, then runs the recovery operation month to month: whether the right estimates are entering recovery, whether reasons are being captured, whether ownership and handoffs are holding, whether the queue still ranks the right work first, whether the evidence behind the numbers stays intact, and whether the process still matches how the shop actually runs. The software can run a workflow. That does not mean the operation runs itself.

The standalone path is not currently available for purchase or scheduling. Shops may inquire about future availability, but Kopikat Research is not activating that option at this time.

A strong sales manager can absolutely own this internally. The honest question is what owning it includes: monitoring, workflow design, prioritization, data quality, reason capture, reporting, measurement, exception handling, and correcting the process when it drifts. Where that capability exists in house, the diagnostic can still document what an internal build would require.

Either way, a successful implementation reduces management burden. It does not add another system that needs babysitting. Managers handle the exceptions that genuinely need judgment. The process design handles the repetition. If it works out otherwise, the design was wrong.