How to answer enquiries when you're on the tools

How fast to reply to tray and canopy enquiries when you're on the tools, with an auto-reply, a missed-call text and a first reply to copy.

You're running a bead along a canopy frame with the hood down when the phone buzzes in your pocket. It goes again before lunch. By knock-off there are three missed calls, two emails and a Facebook message asking what a tray on a LandCruiser costs. You answer them that night at the kitchen table, and by then one has already booked in somewhere else.

If you run the floor and the business, you can't answer every call as it rings, and you don't need to. Answering enquiries when you're on the tools is mostly habit. Every enquiry gets a reply from a person the same working day. That reply gives the customer a next step with a time on it. And you ask for the details you need to price the job before you ring back, not during the call. A phone, an auto-reply and two short blocks of admin a day will cover it.

How fast to respond to a new enquiry

A lot of advice online says to reply to leads within minutes, usually with a statistic attached that I couldn't trace back to a study. Fast is good. But a promise of minutes from someone holding a grinder is a promise you'll break by Tuesday.

Someone pricing a tray or canopy often contacts more than one shop. They don't need an answer before they've hung up. They need to know the message landed, when they'll hear from you, and then to hear from you when you said.

So set a promise you can keep in a flat-out week, not a quiet one. Something like: enquiries in by 3 pm get a reply the same day, and later ones get a reply first thing the next working day. Then put it everywhere a customer might be waiting: under the form on your website, in the email auto-reply, on your voicemail greeting and on your Facebook page. People wait more patiently when they know how long the wait is.

Let the auto-reply ask the questions

An email auto-reply keeps working while you're under a ute. It tells the customer their message arrived, repeats your promise, and asks for the details you'd otherwise spend the first phone call collecting.

Those details are the same four every time: the vehicle, the tray, the canopy and the options. I've written about why those four decide the price. A one-line enquiry is usually missing most of them, so let the auto-reply ask. Something like this:

Thanks for getting in touch. I'm in the workshop during the day and answer enquiries at 10 am and 3:30 pm, so you'll hear from me today, or first thing tomorrow if this came in after 3 pm.

If you'd like a price sooner, reply with what you can of:

• your ute: make, model, year, cab type, and tub or cab-chassis
• the tray: steel or aluminium, and length
• the canopy: door style and roof height
• options: drawers, water tank, fridge slide, racks

"Not sure" is a fine answer, and a photo of the ute helps.

Set it up on whatever address your website form sends to, not only your main inbox. If you'd rather send people to a form, link it in the auto-reply and keep the list as a fallback. The questions your quote request form should ask lists what goes on it.

Turn missed calls into a text

Plenty of callers hang up rather than leave a voicemail. A missed call with no message is still an enquiry, and a text back is the quickest way to keep hold of it.

Start with your voicemail greeting. Say who you are, that you're on the tools, when you'll call back, and where the quote form is. Keep it short.

Then save a missed-call text on your phone and send it at your next break:

Hi, it's (your name) at (workshop). Sorry I missed your call, I'm on the tools and will ring you back after 3:30 today. If it's about a tray or canopy, text me the make, model and year of your ute and what you're after, and I'll have some answers ready when I call.

Some business phone systems and apps can send a text like this automatically when a call goes unanswered. If yours can't, keep it as a saved message and send it by hand at smoko. It takes a few seconds.

Then ring back when you said you would. If the text says 3:30, ring at 3:30.

Stop answering enquiries on the tools, and reply in two batches

Checking the phone every time it buzzes costs more than the minute it takes. You lose your place on the job, and a reply typed with one glove off is rarely a good one.

Pick two set times for enquiries instead, such as morning smoko and the half hour before knock-off, and give each fifteen or twenty minutes. Put them in the calendar like any other job, so a long fit-out doesn't swallow them. In each batch:

• reply to everything new, even if the reply only books a call
• give a price range where the enquiry has enough detail for one
• book a time for anything that needs a conversation
• add every enquiry to one list, with the date and what happens next

The first reply doesn't have to be a quote. Its job is to show you've read the enquiry and to set the next step:

Thanks (name). A steel tray and three-door canopy on a dual cab Ranger usually comes in between $X and $Y fitted, depending on the options. To firm that up I need to know about drawers and a water tank. Can I ring you at 7:30 tomorrow morning, or does Thursday suit better?

That list of open enquiries turns into your list of open quotes once the prices go out. From there, the work is following up without being a pest.

Who else can answer, and what they need

If someone else is around for part of the day, such as a partner, a part-time admin or whoever's on the counter, they can take the first reply off you. What usually stops them is not knowing what they're allowed to say. Write it down once:

• the four details to ask for, and the auto-reply text
• price ranges for the builds you do most, with the date you set them
• current lead times, updated when they change
• your free times for callbacks this week
• what they can't do: give a firm price, promise a fit date, or say yes to custom work you haven't seen

With that sheet, most first replies don't need you. The ones that do go into a callback slot instead of interrupting a job.

The other way to cut the load is to need fewer messages per enquiry. An enquiry that arrives with the vehicle, tray, canopy and options filled in can get a range in the first reply and skip a round of questions. That's what Fitout is built for: customers spec the build on your website, so the enquiry lands ready to price. Without a builder, the auto-reply above asks the same questions by email.

Want enquiries that arrive ready to price? Talk to Ben.