How to manage enquiriesin a trade business
A good enquiry process gives every customer a clear next step. Capture the job details, decide who will respond, follow up at the right time, and record whether the work was won or lost.
This matters most when a team is handling enquiries from several places or managing valuable jobs that need more than one conversation before a quote is accepted.
The enquiry process
A five-stepenquiry process
Keep the process simple enough to use on a busy day. The customer still gets a personal conversation when the job needs one.
- 01
Record the job, not just the contact details
Capture what the customer wants done, where the job is, when they want it, and any details your team needs before calling. A price estimator can collect these answers while giving the customer an indicative price, when the job can be priced fairly from information they know.
- 02
Give every new enquiry an owner and a next step
Decide who will respond and what they need to do. That might be a call, a request for photos, or arranging a site visit. Keep the action visible so a busy day does not leave a good enquiry sitting in an inbox.
- 03
Follow up in a way that fits the conversation
Set the next contact around what the customer needs to decide and when they expect to hear from you. Use a reminder or a suitable email follow-up where it helps, then pause it when your team has spoken with the customer or the situation changes.
- 04
Track the formal quote and the outcome
When you send a quote, record its value and keep the enquiry open until the customer decides. Mark the result as won or lost so the team can see what is still active and learn which enquiries turn into work.
- 05
Hand the won job to the system used to deliver it
Once the customer accepts, move the job into the system your team uses for scheduling, delivery, and invoicing. Enquiry handling and job delivery are connected, but they do not need to live in the same tool.
What to look for
What should enquirysoftware do?
Keep the sale visible
The team should be able to see new enquiries, who has contacted the customer, which quotes are still open, and what needs attention next. A shared pipeline can provide that view without replacing the judgement of the person handling the enquiry.
Connect intake to follow-up
A customer-facing estimate form can collect useful job details before the first call. Follow-up reminders and emails can support the team after that, while formal quotes and job delivery stay with the tools built for those tasks.
Make the source and result easy to review
Record where an enquiry came from and what happened to it. Over time, that helps the business compare channels and spot where enquiries stall. Do not judge a channel only by how many contact forms it produces.
Fit around the work you already use
Job-management software is still responsible for scheduling, job delivery, and invoicing. Choose enquiry tools that hand work on cleanly instead of asking the team to replace a system that already runs the job.
Strelve helps trade businesses manage the enquiry from the first details through follow-up and the sale. It does not bring website visitors in or manage the job after it is won. See how it works with an online price estimator and follow-up tools.
Review your process
A short checklist foryour current process
- Can the team find every new enquiry and its source?
- Does each open enquiry have an owner and a next action?
- Can you see which quotes are waiting for a decision?
- Do you record won and lost outcomes in the same place?