Notes for owners · CRM, automation and RevOps
IndiaMART and marketplace enquiries: a manufacturer's triage sheet
A triage sheet for marketplace enquiries: read the enquiry before you call, put it in one of three bins, and decide how fast each deserves a call. For manufacturers with more leads than hours.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
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The phone buzzes with a marketplace enquiry while you are on the shop floor. You read it for two seconds, think "another rate query", and leave it. Two days later you find it was a buyer who named the pouch size, the output per shift and the town. By then the buyer has ordered elsewhere. A busy shop floor skims enquiries fast and answers them slowly, in the order they arrived. Reverse that. Read each one properly for thirty seconds, drop it into one of three bins, and let the bin decide whether you ring now, message first or just log it.
What the enquiry already tells you
An enquiry carries more than it seems. Read five things, in this order.
- Does it name a product with a size, grade, drawing or model? "SS 304 flange, 6 inch, 150 lb" is a requirement. "Need flange" is a search.
- Is there a quantity or a frequency? "200 pieces monthly" and "one piece for trial" both tell you something. No number tells you nothing.
- Is there a company name, or a GST number you can look up? A named firm in a known industrial area is easier to check than a bare personal number.
- Where is it going? A town near a cluster that buys your kind of part is a good sign. A town you have never shipped to is a question.
- Has this buyer appeared before? A second enquiry from the same number for the same item means the first answer did not satisfy the buyer, or they are comparing.
None of this proves anything. It tells you where to spend your first call.
The three bins
BIN A Call now
Product named with size, grade or drawing, AND
(quantity OR company name)
Or a repeat enquiry from the same buyer
Delivery to an area you serve
BIN B Message first
Product named but nothing else
Company named but the product is vague
A message with two or three questions; one answer is needed
BIN C Log only
"Rate?" "Price?" "Details?" with no product
Personal number, no place, no use
A product you do not make
Write the response speeds at the top of the sheet, and treat them as your own internal targets, not promises to buyers. A line such as "Bin A as soon as anyone is free, before lunch" is better than an unwritten hope, because without it Bin A leads get called whenever someone remembers.
A Bin A call can be short. Confirm the item, ask the quantity and the use, say a quotation will follow and ask who it should be addressed to. The two-minute script for it is in how to qualify a directory enquiry.
Bin B gets one message with one question, for example: "Thank you for your enquiry on the pouch sealing machine. Which pouch size and how many pouches a shift?" It should be one line the buyer can answer from a phone. Bin C gets a line in the register and nothing else.
The register line
One row per enquiry is enough:
| Date | Source | Bin | Product | Quantity | First contact time | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Apr | Marketplace | A | Pouch filler, 200 g | 3,000 a shift | 11.20 | Quote sent, sample asked |
The two columns that teach you are "first contact time" and "what happened". After some weeks you can see whether your quick calls became quotations more often than your slow ones, in your own business. The wider register is in what to track on a directory listing.
An invented case: a packaging machine maker in Vasai
Take an invented maker of semi-automatic pouch sealing and filling machines in Vasai, with three people sharing the marketplace phone. Enquiries are read in the order they arrive. One afternoon is spent at a customer's plant, and an enquiry for a "filling machine for 200 g namkeen pouches, 3,000 pouches a shift" sits unread for two days. The buyer in Indore has ordered from somebody else by then.
Nobody read the content; everybody read the queue. After the sheet, whoever is holding the phone sorts each new enquiry as it pings. The namkeen enquiry becomes Bin A on sight, because product, quantity and use are in one line, and it goes to whoever is free. A bare "price of pouch machine" goes to Bin C.
Within a fortnight the team notices that one Indore buyer who kept appearing was the same person under three names. They call that buyer once instead of answering three times. The cost is that the sorter's minutes now come out of someone's day, and two Bin B messages get no reply at all. The sheet saves the best enquiries, not all of them.
Who holds the phone
Name one person for each shift as the sorter, and write the name on the sheet. The sorter does not answer every call. The job is to bin each enquiry within a few minutes of its arrival and hand Bin A to the person who can talk about the machine. When the sorter is on leave, a second name takes over. Without a named sorter, three people each assume another has looked, and the best enquiry of the week waits longest.
Where the bins do not fit
If you receive a handful of enquiries a week, ring them all. If your product is a catalogue item bought on price, quantity may rarely be stated, and "no quantity" then means little. Rewrite the bins around what matters in your trade, such as the grade or the specification.
A Bin C enquiry can still become a customer. The sheet decides speed, not worth. And do not rely on the marketplace's own lead score alone; it cannot see how your trade works.
Sort tomorrow's ten
Copy the three bins to the top of your sheet and sort the next ten enquiries before you pick up the phone. Bin C will be full of price-only leads, and how to answer a lowest-price lead covers those. If the volume has outgrown the sheet, IndiaMART and marketplace lead management is the service, the manufacturing hub has more for factories, and you can tell us what you need.
