How can I Create and Manage Inquiries in RepairDesk?
In the repair shop business, customers often call the shop to get a quote about a repair service, product, store location, warranty or to generally inquire about something.
To assist you in this matter, the inquiries module allows you to quickly enter the inquiry information and send it back to the customer instantly through sms or email. Moreover, you can keep the record of these inquiries along with an option to convert the inquiry into an estimate, invoice or a ticket.
Benefits of inquiries module
- Help you to keep the record of incoming calls/inquiries.
- Help you to take follow-ups of the inquiries.
- Help you to swiftly convert the inquiries to estimates, invoices or tickets.
- Help you to turn potential customers to regular customers
Table of contents
1. Opening inquiry pop-up 2. Creating an inquiry 3. Post inquiry options 4. Manage Inquiries 5. Multi-Store Inquiries 6. Frequently asked questions
1. Opening inquiry pop-up
You can create an inquiry in multiple ways which are listed below.
1.1 Creation of an inquiry from POS
1. Go to the point of sale screen and click on "More Actions", then you can open the inquiry pop-up by clicking "Create Inquiry".
2. Alternatively, the inquiry pop-up can also be opened by Ctrl + i in Windows.
1.2 Creation of an inquiry from Manage Inquiries You can also create an inquiry by clicking the “Create Inquiry” button on the “Manage Inquiries” page.
1.3 Creation of an inquiry from RingCentral and PBX integration notification pop-up:
If you have RingCentral or PBX integration enabled, then when a customer calls, you will be shown a notification pop-up. You can create an inquiry from this pop-up. There are three scenarios for this pop-up based on the customer which are as follows:
Scenario 1
If it's an existing customer with no ticket in the system then customer details will be shown in the pop-up and only the “Create Inquiry” and “Close” buttons will be shown below the customer details.
When you hit “Create Inquiry” then the “Create Inquiry” form will be opened, with customer details populated automatically in it.
Scenario 2
If it's an existing customer with an existing ticket in the system then the customer details will be shown in the pop-up and the “Create Inquiry”, “Ticket” and “Close” buttons will be shown below the customer details.
When you hit “Create Inquiry” then the “Create Inquiry” form will be opened, with customer details populated automatically in it.
Scenario 3
If it's a new customer whose information is not available in the system then their ‘number’ (from which they are calling) will be shown in the pop-up.
When the user hits “Create Inquiry” then the “Create Inquiry” form will be opened, with the customer's number populated in it and customer’s info will be saved in the system once you create inquiry.
2.1. Adding Customer Details
After the inquiry form is opened, you can search for an existing customer and their details will be populated automatically on selecting an existing customer. Moreover, if you edit the customer’s details and create an inquiry then their details will also get updated in the system.
Otherwise, you can manually add the customer details, if it is a new customer and create an inquiry then their details will also get updated in the system.
The “Search Address” field works on Google API and you can search the address from there. As you search an address, suggestions will be shown to you. Once you select a particular address, then the fields like postcode, city, state and country will be populated automatically.
If your selected country in the ‘store settings’ is GDPR compliant, then a checkbox with description “Compliance with GDPR” will appear in the inquiry form.
After inquiry is created, email/sms will be sent to the customer automatically as ‘send email’ and ‘send sms’ will be enabled by default.
2.2. Adding inquiry Details
There are five types of inquiries and you can make multiple inquiry types in a single go.
Store Directions
If the customer wants to inquire about the directions and timings of the store then you can swifty send them directions and timings via email, sms or both by clicking the ‘send’ button.
Note: Pre-defined templates of email/sms are placed in Email & Notifications→ Inquiries.
Repairs
1. For entering ‘repairs’ inquiry, the workflow will be similar to the POS.
2. However, you won’t be able to add new products, categories, manufactures etc from the inquiry pop-up. Although, what is visible on POS, will be shown in the inquiry pop-up.
3. If you enable the “Mark as labor/billable hours category” trigger against any category from “Manage Repair Categories” then on selecting that particular category in the inquiry form, ‘problems’ tab will open while ‘manufacturer’ and ‘device’ will be skipped.
4. If you want to provide repair quotes for multiple services, then you can click on the “Add New ” button and add a new service.
Sales
1. In the ‘sales’ tab, you can search any product in the system by its name, SKU, serial, IMEI or item number.
Warranty
1. In ‘warranty’, you can search the warranty status of a completed repair.
General:
1. In the ‘general inquiry’ type you can add information about any unavailable product/service manually or any random inquiry from the customer to keep the record of the call.
After clicking on create inquiry, the following pop-up will be opened. This pop-up will have the options of Details, Assign to Employee, Add Activity and Send Email/SMS.
1. The “Details” tab will show the line items for the selected inquiry types in the inquiry form.
2. You can also download the PDF file of the created inquiry by clicking “Export as PDF”.
3. Moreover, if a ‘repairs’ or ‘sales’ inquiry was made then you can convert that inquiry to an estimate, ticket or an invoice from this pop-up.
Note: A ‘repairs’ inquiry can only be converted to an estimate or a ticket. A ‘sales’ inquiry can only be converted to an estimate or an invoice. However, if both ‘repairs’ and ‘sales’ inquiry types are selected in a single inquiry, then it can be converted to an estimate, ticket or an invoice.
4. Furthermore, you can add an activity or assign an inquiry to an employee. Templates of these emails are placed in Store Settings→ Email & Notifications→ Inhouse→ Inquiry. However, if you add comments from this pop-up, they will be sent with the predefined email template.
5. In addition, even if the notification toggles of ‘via email’ and ‘via sms’ in the customer details are disabled, you can send them email/sms from the following tab of this pop-up.
4. Manage Inquiries
4.1 View page
1. On the manage inquiries page, on clicking Action→ View or the ‘’id’ against a particular inquiry, you will be redirected to the ‘view’ page of that inquiry.
2. On this page, you can add an activity against an inquiry or you can send notifications to your employees or the customer of that inquiry.
3. You can also convert the inquiry to an estimate, ticket or an invoice, from this page.
4.2 Status of an inquiry
1. ‘New’ status will be assigned when an inquiry is created (when no further action is taken after its creation).
2. ‘Closed’ status will be assigned when an inquiry is converted to an estimate, invoice or a ticket.
3. ‘Open’ status will be assigned when an inquiry is assigned to an employee or an activity has been added against it.
4. ‘Cancelled’ status will be assigned when, on a follow-up, a customer does not want to proceed with an inquiry. This can be assigned manually by clicking on the ‘action’ button against an inquiry, by clicking the “Cancel” button.
2. With doing that, the same pop-up will be opened that was used to create the inquiry in the first place with previous information already populated.
5. Multi-Store Inquiries
In Store Settings→ Module Configurations→ Inquiries, when the trigger described as “Display Inquiries of all Stores” is enabled, then the ‘store name’ column will be shown to admin and super admin in the "Manage Inquiries" page. From here, they can track the inquiries made across all stores.
6. Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Can i edit or cancel an inquiry that has been converted to an estimate, ticket or an invoice? A. No, you cannot cancel or edit an inquiry that has been converted to an estimate, ticket or an invoice and its status is converted to “Closed”.
Q. What options will be given against an inquiry whose status is set to ‘cancelled’? A. A cancelled inquiry can only be deleted. No further actions can be performed against it.
Q. Do the inquiry types of store directions, warranty and general have any status? A. No, status will only be shown against ‘repairs’ and ‘sales’ inquiry.
Q. Can the employees be given access to multi-store inquiries? A. In Manage Employees→ Roles Permissions→ Inquiries, access can be given to employees by checking “Show inquiries across all stores” given the trigger in module configuration of inquiries is enabled.
Q. If multiple inquiry types are selected within a single inquiry, how the notifications sent to customers will work? A. If multiple inquiry types are made within a single inquiry, then on clicking “Create Inquiry”, a separate email/sms for each inquiry type will be sent to the customer.