Enquiry handling

Every enquiry answered in minutes, from every channel.

A build that catches every enquiry, whether it comes through the website form, the phone, email, Facebook or a text, answers it inside minutes, sends it to the right person, and logs it. Missed calls get a text back before the caller has finished ringing your competitor.

Get your free plan Three sizes

The standard size takes: Two weeks
You own: The system and the enquiry log, in your accounts
Runs monthly: Only if you choose to pay monthly

No figure appears on this page. Your free plan comes back with the price of every size, and with what the whole job costs together.

What it is

Speed is the whole game with an enquiry. Someone who has just filled in a form is at their most interested, and every hour that passes moves them towards whoever answers first. A reply that arrives in five minutes with a real next step wins work that a reply the next morning does not.

The second half of the job is the log. When every enquiry is recorded with its channel and its outcome, you find out which of your marketing actually produces work, and which of it produces noise. Most businesses guess at this because there is no record to look at.

This is for you if

Enquiries wait until someone is back at a desk
Missed calls stay missed
Messages arrive in four places and get read in one
Nobody can say how many enquiries came in last month, or how many became jobs

One of these is usually enough. If none of them is true, this is not the first thing I would build for you, and the plan will say so.

Why it comes where it does

The business that replies first usually gets the job. Most enquiries are lost in the gap between the message arriving and somebody being free to read it.

Nothing has to be built before this one, so it can be the first thing you do. Your free plan still puts it in order against everything else you are considering.

Three sizes, by scope

The sizes differ by how much is in them, not by how well it is done. Start at the size that matches the business today; moving up later is normal.

The Essentials

Nothing goes unanswered.

Website form, email and one social channel in one place
An instant first reply that says what happens next
Missed calls texted back
Written documentation

One week

The usual choice

The Standard

Answered, sorted and counted. Most businesses choose this.

Everything in the size before, plus:

Every channel you use, including text and after-hours calls
Triage rules that send each enquiry to the right person
A log of every enquiry with its channel and outcome
Training for whoever handles enquiries

Two weeks

The Works

The front door, run properly.

Everything in the size before, plus:

Booking or quote link in the first reply
Chase for enquiries nobody has answered by end of day
Enquiries fed into your CRM or quote system
Monthly report of enquiries by channel and what they became

Four weeks

The figure for each of the three sizes is not published here, because it depends on what else you are building at the same time. Build your free plan and the figure for each size comes back with it, along with what the whole job costs together.

How it is built

01
I list every channel an enquiry can arrive through, including the ones nobody watches.
02
I agree the rules with you: what gets an instant answer, what goes to whom, what counts as urgent.
03
The build: one inbox for every channel, the first replies, the routing, the missed-call text.
04
The log, so every enquiry has a channel and an outcome against it.
05
A week running beside the old way, then the old way stops.
06
Written documentation and a session with whoever answers enquiries.

Before you decide

Three things people get wrong.

They sayAn automatic reply feels impersonal.

A holding message that names what they asked for and says exactly when you will call reads as organised. Silence for a day reads as uninterested.

They sayWe would need someone watching the inbox anyway.

You need someone to do the work, not to sort the messages. Sorting, acknowledging and routing is the part that stops needing a person.

They sayOur enquiries mostly come by phone, so this will not help.

Missed calls are where this pays best. A text back within a minute of a missed call recovers jobs that were simply gone before.

Your options

The alternatives, side by side.

Doing it yourself and hiring it out are both real answers. Here is how the three compare on the things that actually decide it.

Slide the table sideways to read every column.

Option	What it costs	What you own	Time	Outcome
Keep doing it by hand	The enquiries that go cold while everyone is on site	Nothing new	Now	First reply whenever someone is free
Hire a receptionist or an answering service	A salary plus leave and cover, or a per-call fee that grows	A person or a contract, neither of which is yours	Weeks to hire, or a month to onboard a service	Covered in office hours, quiet outside them
This build	One build, or a monthly fee	The system and the enquiry log, in your accounts	Two weeks	Every enquiry answered in minutes, day or night, and counted

In practice

Four channels, one inbox

Website form, inbox, Facebook messages and the after-hours phone all land in one place. Every enquiry gets an answer inside five minutes with the next step, urgent ones go straight to the phone in the van, and at the end of the month there is a list of every enquiry and what happened to it.

Straight answers

Questions I get asked about this.

01Does this answer the phone?

It does not take the call. It texts back within a minute of a missed call, with a link to book or a short question, so the caller has a way forward instead of a dead line.

02Will it try to answer questions it should not?

No. The first reply acknowledges, asks for the detail you always end up asking for, and says when a person will be in touch. Answering questions in your own words is the office assistant build, not this one.

03What about after hours and weekends?

That is when it earns most. Enquiries at nine on a Sunday night get the same reply in the same minutes, and the urgent ones can still reach a phone if you want them to.

04Do the messages still come to our normal inbox?

Yes. Nothing is hidden behind a new tool you have to remember to check. The build adds the answering, the routing and the record.

Also in administration

What sits next to this.

Business operations retainer

The admin that runs itself.

Workflow audit

Where the hours actually go, measured over two weeks.

Quote and invoice automation

Quotes that follow themselves up. Invoices that chase themselves.

See all of administration

The next move

Enquiry handling, priced in context.

The free plan asks a few questions about the business, then comes back with this service at the size that fits, anything that has to come first, and the figure for each part and for the whole job. Nothing is charged and nothing is booked at the end of it.

Get your free plan stuart@sevenlens.co

Get your free plan