Win more work by answering enquiries faster

Somebody with a leaking hot water system doesn't send one enquiry. They send three or four, to whoever they found first, and book whoever gets back to them with something sensible. The tradie who replies tomorrow morning with a perfect quote often loses to the one who replied in twenty minutes with a question. Being quick is one of the cheapest ways a trade business can win more work, and it's mostly a matter of setting things up so it happens without you thinking about it.

Know where your enquiries come from

Before you can answer quickly, you have to see the enquiry. For most trade businesses they arrive in five places at once: a phone, a personal email, a business email, Facebook and a lead website or two. Each extra place is somewhere an enquiry can sit unseen for a day. List them, close the ones you don't need, and get the rest into one inbox the whole team can see.

Acknowledge fast, quote properly

A fast reply doesn't have to be a quote. It needs to tell the customer you've got their message, you're the right person for the job, and what happens next. That buys you the time to quote properly, and it takes the customer off the market while you do. Something like:

Ask for what you need the first time

Most back-and-forth comes from missing details. Decide what you need for each kind of job and ask for all of it in the first reply:

• the site address, or at least the suburb;
• photos of the problem, and of any labels or model numbers;
• access: stairs, a locked gate, pets, parking;
• when suits them, and how urgent it really is;
• whether they own the property or need the landlord's approval.

Sort the urgent from the rest

Not every enquiry needs a reply in minutes. A burst pipe, no power or a gas smell does; a quote for a new deck next autumn can wait until the evening. Agree with the team what counts as urgent and who answers those, including after hours, so the emergency jobs, which are often the best paid, never wait in a pile with the rest.

Cover the hours you're on the tools

The enquiry that arrives while you're under a house is the one most likely to go to someone else. Options that help: a short automatic reply that says when you'll be in touch, someone in the office or a family member watching the inbox, and checking messages at set times, such as smoko and lunch, rather than "when I get a chance". AI can take some of this load too; using AI without the hype covers what to hand over and what to keep.

Follow up the quotes

Speed matters at the end too. A quote that's sent and never mentioned again often loses to the business that called two days later to ask if there were any questions. Put a follow-up on every quote, and make sure the quote itself is easy to say yes to; our guide on what to put on a quote covers that. If you follow up with marketing messages rather than replies to a request, the Spam Act's consent and unsubscribe rules apply.

How BizzMate helps

• One inbox for your email, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, shared with the team.
• Every real enquiry becomes a job card on the board, with the urgent ones flagged, so nothing sits in an inbox unseen.
• A drafted first reply to each new enquiry on Crew plans and up, ready to check and send.
• Automatic acknowledgements, if you want them, which are off until you switch them on. They thank the customer and ask for missing details if nobody has replied in time, never quote a price or promise a time, and say a person will follow up.
• Quotes sent by email with the customer's accept, decline or "request changes" coming straight back to you.

New work also comes from the BizzMate Marketplace, where local customers post jobs for tradies to offer on. Start a 14-day free trial, no card needed.

This guide is general information, not legal or financial advice.