Replying to Bengaluru buyers before lunch when the owner is on the shop floor

Your machine needs you from nine till two, and Bengaluru buyers write at ten. A purchase executive in Whitefield wants three quotes on her manager's desk after lunch. A unit that answers at three is not one of them. You do not have to leave the floor to change this. Name one person who watches the enquiry inbox and the business WhatsApp from opening time to lunch. Give them a four-part reply and a written sheet of what they may quote without you. Then spend fifteen minutes at one o'clock on everything they held back.

Who watches the inbox, and on what

Not the supervisor, and not you. Anyone who works on the floor sees messages at tea time. Pick the person who sits at a desk all morning: the accounts assistant, the dispatch clerk, or the son or daughter who runs the office.

Give them the business WhatsApp on a phone that stays on that desk, and the enquiry inbox on the office computer. If the business number lives on your own phone in your shirt pocket, move it. A second person covers their day off, and both know who is on duty.

Why before lunch? A purchase team that writes to four units at ten may compare whatever has arrived when it sits down after lunch. Your quote is on that desk, or it is not.

The reply in four parts

Every first reply has the same four parts, in this order. The examples are for a box maker; change the nouns for your trade.

1. Who is answering. "Good morning, this is Kavya from (unit name), Tumakuru. I handle enquiries in the mornings."
2. The need, in their numbers. "You need 2,000 five-ply boxes, inner size 400 by 300 by 250 mm, with your logo in one colour."
3. The answer, or the right questions. If it is on the rate card, send the price, the minimum order and the lead time printed on the card. If not, ask what goes in the box, how heavy it is when packed, and whether there is a print.
4. The next step, with a time. "Our owner will confirm the print rate at (a time you will keep). We can send two samples to your office if you share the address."

Part four is where most replies fail. "Will revert" is not a time.

What the desk may quote without asking you

Write three lists on one sheet and keep it beside the phone.

Send alone. Sizes and ply on the rate card, at card price. The minimum order, the sample charge and the lead time printed on the card. A one-colour logo print, if the card has a print rate.

Hold for one o'clock. Any size not on the card, and die-cut or multi-colour work. Seven-ply. A request to match another supplier's price. Any delivery date earlier than the card says.

Owner only, always. Credit terms. A discount of any size. A promise to a buyer you already deal with personally.

The desk should never have to guess which list a request belongs on. When they are unsure, it goes on the middle one.

The one o'clock look

When you come off the floor for lunch, sit with the desk for fifteen minutes before you eat. The held items get an answer, the desk sends them by half past one, and you go back.

Set the target so anyone can check it. An enquiry that arrives before half past twelve gets a price or the right questions before two. Anything later gets it before the office closes. Our note on how quickly a team should respond sets targets by channel. This routine is for the unit where the only person who can price is busy making the product.

The quote is only the start. What happens on day three, when the buyer goes quiet, is covered in following up on a quotation.

For example: a box maker in Tumakuru

Imagine a corrugated box unit in Tumakuru supplying D2C brands and electronics assemblers in Bengaluru. Buyers can weigh it against Peenya suppliers an hour closer, as with other Karnataka towns around the capital. The owner runs the corrugator until two, and the office assistant answered every morning enquiry with "Noted, will revert". To the owner, that was a reply. To a buyer at a Koramangala cosmetics brand it meant no price, and she ordered about ₹60,000 of boxes (an invented figure) from a Peenya unit that sent one by eleven.

The owner wrote a rate card for the twelve sizes he makes most, with a 'valid until' date. His assistant got the four-part reply and the three lists.

Then a second mistake showed up. The assistant quoted the three-ply card price for a box that turned out to carry glass bottles of hair oil. The floor caught it before the order was placed, but it cost an awkward call. So the question about contents and packed weight became compulsory in part three. Glass, liquids, and anything heavier than the card's stated limit now go on the middle list.

When the desk should not quote at all

Some units should keep prices off the desk entirely:

• If paper prices are moving and your card changes more than once a fortnight, the desk sends questions and a time, not a price.
• A unit where nearly every job is custom die-cut work has nothing for the desk to quote. The script still works; part three is all questions.
• Your three biggest accounts expect you. For them the desk confirms receipt and says when you will call.
• No rate card yet? Until you write one, the desk sends questions and a time, never a figure it has guessed.

Time tomorrow's enquiries

Tomorrow morning, note when each enquiry arrives and when it gets a real answer, not an acknowledgement. If the gap runs past lunch, name the person first and write the card that week. The script, the card and the three lists are the enquiry response starter, and tell us what you need is how it begins.