Inquiries

An inquiry is one conversation with a customer: they wrote or called wanting something, got a reply (or not), and the conversation ended somehow. Inquiries feed “% unanswered”, conversion to order and the loss reasons on the dashboard.

How to record an inquiry

Open the customer card and click “+ Inquiry”. Fill in the form and click “Save”. The inquiry appears on the customer's “History” tab and in the “Inquiries” section.

An inquiry always belongs to the customer's project — there is no project to choose.

Form fields

• “Date and time” — when the customer got in touch, account time. Now by default.
• “What they wanted” — in short: “30 balloons by 1 September”.
• “Delivery wish”: “Wanted delivery date”, “Wanted delivery, in words” (“for the weekend”, “in the morning”), “City”, “Address”. They are copied into the order if you create one from the inquiry.
• “Answered” — see below.
• “First response” — when the customer first got a reply. Optional: once messengers are connected it will be recorded automatically.
• “Outcome” and “Why lost” — see below.
• “Notes” and “Additional fields”.

Answered

“Yes”, “No” or “Unknown”. “No” means the customer got no reply: the inquiry counts in “% unanswered”, and the customer appears under “Unanswered” on the dashboard and in the “No answer” filter of the customer list (if it is their latest inquiry).

Outcomes

“Outcome” — how the inquiry ended:

Set the outcome as soon as it is clear: conversion and loss reasons depend on it. While the outcome is “Unknown”, the inquiry counts as open. Once WhatsApp is connected to the project, the customer's new messages will be added to their open inquiry, and a new inquiry will be created only if there is no open one — so it matters to close inquiries with an outcome.

Loss reasons

The outcome “Lost” requires a reason: payment problem, no delivery there, out of stock, price, website did not work, went to a competitor, we answered too late, other. Reasons are collected in the “Loss reasons” block of the dashboard — so you see what most often stops sales.

Inquiry card

Opens from the customer's history or from the list. It shows every field of the inquiry and “Orders from this inquiry”. Buttons: “Edit”, “Create order”, “Remind me” (on an open inquiry, see below), “Delete”. An open reminder is shown under the description: “Remind on 10 October: …”. If the outcome is “Ordered” and there is no order yet, a note and a green “Create order” button appear at the top (see Order from an inquiry).

WhatsApp messages and inquiries

Once a WhatsApp number is connected to the project, inquiries are created by themselves:

• A customer's message goes to their open inquiry — the one with the outcome “Unknown” — however much time has passed: a customer may write “I'll be back in 10 days” and come back. If several are open, the message goes to the newest one.
• A new inquiry is created only when the customer has no open one. “What they wanted” gets the start of the message (up to 200 characters) or its type — “Photo”, “Voice message”; “Answered” is “No”.
• Your first reply from the phone after such a message sets “Answered: Yes” and “First response” — this is how the response time on the dashboard is counted.
• Inquiries never close by themselves: set the outcome once the conversation is over. After 30 days of silence QoCRM reminds you of an open inquiry (see Remind me to reach out).

Two buttons on the inquiry card (the owner, admins, managers):

• “Start a new inquiry” — closes nothing: the inquiry stays open, but the customer's next message creates a new one. Use it when the customer writes about another order. A line “New messages from the customer will go to a new inquiry” appears under the inquiry.
• “Merge with the previous one” — joins this inquiry with the customer's previous one: messages and orders move to the previous inquiry, its “What they wanted” is added to the notes, and this inquiry disappears. The merge is written to the audit log.

Remind me to reach out

A customer writes “I want flowers for the 11th, I'll write a day before” — and may forget or lose the chat. Click “Remind me” on an open inquiry: on the inquiry card, in the customer's history or in the list of inquiries.

• Date — the quick choices “The day before delivery” (when a wanted delivery date is set and has not passed), “Tomorrow”, “In 3 days”, “In a week”, or any date from today on.
• Note — what you agreed: “the customer will write on the 10th, choose between roses and peonies”.
• “Who to remind” — “Me” or “All managers of the project”.

On that day (account time) the reminder appears in “Inquiry reminders”, in “Time to reach out” on the dashboard and in the morning email. An inquiry has one open reminder: “Remind me” again changes its date and note. When the inquiry gets an outcome, the reminder closes by itself.

If nothing happens with an open inquiry for 30 days, QoCRM reminds you of it: “No outcome for 30 days — what to do?”. More in the calendar.

The list of inquiries

“Inquiries” in the menu — all inquiries of your projects, newest first. Filters: “Project”, “Outcome”, “Answered”, “Why lost”, “Period” (dates from … to …). Open inquiries show their open reminder and a “Remind me” link in the “Outcome” column. From the dashboard the list opens with the period and the reason already set. “Export” downloads the list to Excel or CSV (see Export).

Deleting and restoring

The owner and admins can delete an inquiry: it disappears from the history, lists and reports. To bring it back, switch on the “Deleted inquiries” filter in the list, open the inquiry and click “Restore”. Deleting and restoring are recorded in the audit log.

The owner, admins and managers (in their projects) can create and change inquiries; a viewer only looks.