How to qualify a directory enquiry in two minutes

The enquiry reads "Need rate of pipe wrench 18 inch, urgent", with a name, a mobile number and nothing else. Five questions, asked on the first call in the right order, tell you within two minutes whether this is a buyer. Ask what it is for, how many, where it goes, whose name the quotation should carry, and when it is needed. Ask them as help, not as a test. After every answer give something back, and a real buyer keeps talking.

What a directory enquiry leaves out

A directory form asks the buyer for almost nothing, so the enquiry tells you almost nothing. "Urgent" means little; many buyers type it. The product name is whatever the buyer wrote or the category they clicked. The quantity, the sizes, the delivery town and the buyer's identity are all missing.

Many suppliers fill the gap one of two ways. They send the full price list on WhatsApp and wait, or they quote the single item named in the enquiry. The first hands your rates to traders who will undercut them. The second misses the buyer who types only the first item that came to mind and actually needs forty wrenches and three sets of spanners.

The call below sorts the kinds of enquirer described in the note on directories.

The five questions, in the order to ask them

Start with the question that is easiest to answer and most useful to the buyer. Leave identity for the middle, when the buyer is already talking.

1. "What will you be using them for?" A maintenance contractor names a job. A trader says "for our counter" or "for supply". The answer also tells you which product to offer, which may not be the one typed.
2. "How many do you need, and in which sizes?" Someone with a real job knows roughly. A browser says "first tell me the rate".
3. "Which town should they be delivered to?" Freight, the GST on the invoice, and whether you can serve the buyer at all.
4. "Shall I make the quotation in your company's name?" If yes, ask for the GSTIN and who will approve the order. A business buyer answers without thinking. A person buying for their own use says so.
5. "When do you need them on site?" If the date is close, add: "Is anyone else quoting?" Now you know whether you are first or third.

Do not open with "Are you a genuine buyer?", and do not ask about budget at all. Asking for the GSTIN first sounds like a credit check, which is why it sits fourth.

Give something back after each answer

Five questions fired at a stranger sound like an interrogation, and the caller may hang up. A line of advice after each answer turns the call into a conversation.

After the application: "For shutdown work take the drop-forged one; a cast body can crack on a stuck flange." After the quantity: "At forty pieces the carton rate applies, and I will show it on the quote." After the delivery town: "We have transport going to Jamshedpur, so freight will be on the quotation too."

The same script works in another trade. A packaging maker asks "What will go in the carton?", "How many a month?", "Which town?", "In which company's name?" and "When is the first lot due?", and gives back a line such as "For heavy items we use five-ply". None of this is a sales pitch. It shows the buyer they are speaking to someone who knows the product, which helps them stay on the line for question five.

What the answers add up to

Count the questions the caller answered with something specific. "Some quantity" does not count. "Forty, in three sizes" does.

• Four or five answered. A buyer. Quote the same day if you can, in the company's name, for the full mix described, and fix a time to talk it through.
• Two or three. An early enquiry, or a contractor collecting rates for someone else. Send a price range for the sizes named with the catalogue page, and ask the missing questions again in a few days.
• None or one. Close politely, send the catalogue link, and record the kind of enquirer.

The count is a rule of thumb, not a verdict. A plant engineer who will not name the company on the first call may still be your best enquiry. If the application and quantity are specific, treat the caller as a buyer anyway.

Imagine a hand tools maker in Jalandhar

Imagine a maker of spanners, wrenches and pliers in Jalandhar, receiving enquiries from two directories. The details are illustrative.

The sales assistant answered every enquiry the same way: the full price list as a PDF on WhatsApp. Traders across the north used it to quote against the company. The "pipe wrench 18 inch, urgent" enquiry received the same PDF, no call, and never replied.

Then the five questions became the routine. The next "urgent pipe wrench" caller turned out to be a maintenance contractor in Jamshedpur with a plant shutdown coming. The contractor needed forty pipe wrenches in three sizes and twenty sets of ring spanners. The quotation went out that afternoon in the firm's name, carton rate shown. The order was for thirty wrenches, not forty, after the contractor's own budget was cut. From then on the price list went only to callers who had answered at least two questions, and the assistant now makes twelve more calls a week.

When to skip the script

A buyer who has sent a drawing, a specification sheet or a purchase indent has answered the questions in writing, so quote. Repeat customers will find the questions odd. Export enquiries need different ones, about samples, documents and payment. Our note on what the overseas buyer asks covers those.

Try it on tomorrow's enquiries

Print the five questions and the three outcomes on one page. Tape it beside the phone of whoever takes directory enquiries. After a fortnight, count how many quotations went out in a buyer's company name, and compare with the fortnight before. The manufacturing hub has the rest of the enquiry-handling posts. If you want the script written around your own products, with lead qualification behind it, tell us what you need.