Picture a furniture workshop in Indore. On a Monday it gets nine enquiries: four on WhatsApp, two calls while the owner was on the shop floor, one Instagram DM, one form on the website and one walk-in who said he would come back. By Thursday, two have been answered properly. Nobody remembers the Instagram one. The form went to an email inbox no one checks.
None of those people said no. They just did not hear back in time, and someone else answered first. That is how most enquiries go cold. What fixes it is a small, boring routine that makes sure every enquiry gets a reply the same day and a follow-up after that.
Speed matters more than polish
A person who has just enquired is thinking about you right now. A few hours later they are comparing three other quotes, or they have forgotten. A short, warm reply in the first hour beats a perfect reply the next day.
Set one rule: every enquiry that arrives during business hours gets a human reply the same day, and anything that arrives after hours gets one by noon the next day. On the WhatsApp Business app you can set an away message for after hours, quick replies for the questions you get ten times a day, and labels to sort chats. Use the away message to set expectations, for example "We reply to every message by 12 noon. If it is urgent, call us on this number." Then keep the promise.
Ask the right questions up front
Half the back-and-forth on WhatsApp is you asking things you could have asked once. If you have a form on your website or a WhatsApp greeting, ask three or four qualifying questions there. Keep it short, because every extra question loses some people.
- What do you need? (a short list of your main products or services to choose from)
- By when?
- Rough budget, as a range
- Area or PIN code, if you deliver or visit
For a clinic, swap budget for "first visit or follow-up". For a caterer, ask number of guests and date. The point is to know, before you reply, whether this is a ₹500 order or a ₹50,000 one, and whether you can actually do it.
One sheet for every enquiry
Enquiries arrive from many places. They need to land in one list. A Google Sheet shared with whoever handles enquiries is enough. Every enquiry gets a row, wherever it came from, the moment it arrives. If it is not in the sheet, it does not exist.
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Date and time | When the enquiry came in |
| Name and phone | Phone in one format, with country code, so you can tap to WhatsApp |
| Source | WhatsApp, call, Google profile, Instagram, website form, walk-in, referral |
| Need | A few words: "6-seater dining table, teak" |
| Value | Your rough estimate of the order size |
| Owner | The one person responsible for this enquiry |
| First reply | Time of the first human reply |
| Next step and date | "Send quote Tue", "Call back Fri 5 pm" |
| Status | New, in talks, quote sent, won, lost |
| Reason lost | Price, timing, no reply, bought elsewhere, not a fit |
| Sale amount | Filled in when it closes |
Use dropdowns for source, owner and status so nobody types "whtsapp" and breaks your counts later. Sort by next-step date each morning and you have the day's follow-up list.
Give every enquiry one owner
When everyone is responsible, nobody is. If two people share the shop phone, each assumes the other replied. Write a name in the owner column for every row. That person replies, follows up and updates the status. If the owner is going on leave, they hand their open rows to someone else by name, in the sheet.
A three-touch follow-up rhythm
Most people who do not reply are busy, not uninterested. Three touches, spaced out, catch most of them without being pushy.
- Same day: reply to the enquiry, answer the question, and ask for one small next step. "Can I call you at 6 today to understand the size?" or "Here is the quote. Shall I block the date?"
- Day 2 or 3: a short WhatsApp with something useful. A photo of similar work, an answer to a doubt they raised, or a simple "Did you get a chance to look at the quote?"
- Day 7: a last, polite message that closes the loop. "Should I keep this open, or have you sorted it? Either is fine, just let me know." A clear way out often gets a reply when the earlier messages did not.
After the third touch, mark it lost with a reason, and move on. Festival season or a wedding date coming up is a fair reason to reach out again later, once.
A short calling outline
A call closes faster than ten messages, especially for anything above a small ticket. Do not read a script word for word. Use an outline so the call has a shape.
Open
Say who you are and why you are calling, and check it is a good time. "Hi, this is Ramesh from Sharma Furniture, you asked about a dining table on WhatsApp. Is this a good time for two minutes?"
Qualify
Ask what you need to know to give a real answer. What is it for, by when, what have they seen elsewhere, who else is deciding. Listen more than you talk. Write the answers into the sheet straight after.
Next step
Never end a call with "let me know". End it with a specific step and a time. "I will send two designs with prices by 7 tonight. Can I call you tomorrow at 11 to decide?" Put that in the next-step column before you put the phone down.
A 30-minute weekly review
Once a week, at the same time, the owner and whoever handles enquiries sit with the sheet for half an hour. Look at every row that is not won or lost. Is there a next step with a date? If not, add one or close it. Then look at the lost reasons. If "price" keeps showing up, you may be attracting the wrong buyers or quoting too late. If "no reply" dominates, your first replies are too slow. This is where the sheet starts teaching you things about your business.
What to measure
Four numbers, counted every week from the sheet:
- Enquiries received, split by source
- Share replied to the same day
- Enquiries converted to a sale
- Cost per sale, which is what you spent on ads or listings that week divided by the sales those sources produced
Do not chase more enquiries until the same-day reply number is close to all of them. Fixing follow-up is usually cheaper than buying more leads, because you already paid for the ones you are ignoring.
Where this fits with Avishka
This system, along with the calling script and an enquiry-to-sale tracker built for your business, is the core of our Get found and convert enquiries offer. We set it up, run it alongside your team for a few weeks until the routine sticks, then hand it over. If enquiries are not coming in yet, start with your Google Business Profile.