Enquiries everywhere, follow-up nowhere
This week you had enquiries from your website form, two via a venue that lists you as a recommended caterer, one from a wedding directory, three Instagram messages and a voicemail. Each got a reply with your brochure and sample menus.
A month later, you cannot easily say which of them are still considering you. Two asked about tastings and were told you would send dates. One was sent a quote and has not replied. The Instagram ones went quiet. Meanwhile, tasting sessions are organised by email back and forth, and a couple arrive for a tasting on a day when the chef is at an event.
Every channel has its own inbox
Enquiries arrive where your clients are, which is everywhere. Each channel has its own inbox and none of them are designed to track an enquiry over weeks.
- Website forms go to an email inbox shared by several people.
- Social media messages sit inside the app and are answered from someone's phone.
- Venue and directory leads arrive in their own format.
- Tasting dates are arranged by email without a shared calendar of chef availability.
- Nobody records why enquiries were lost, so there is nothing to learn from.
Replying to the first message is the easy part. Keeping track for six weeks while also running events is the hard part.
Timing makes it worse. Enquiries peak in the months when you are busiest delivering, so the people who would follow up are out at events on the weekends and catching up on paperwork during the week. The enquiries that suffer are exactly the ones for next year's season, which you need most.
Tastings add their own logistics. The chef has to be in the unit, the right dishes have to be prepped, and the client needs to know where to go and park. When dates are agreed by email over several days, a slot offered to one couple can be accepted by another before anyone updates the calendar.
Enquiries you never hear from again
Wedding and private event clients usually speak to several caterers. The ones who follow up at the right moment, with a tasting offer or a thoughtful answer, stay in the running. The ones who wait for the client to come back often do not.
Tastings are expensive to run: chef time, ingredients and a front of house person. Tastings for clients who were never likely to book, or double-booked sessions, use up time you could spend on those who are.
One pipeline from first message to booking
- Every channel feeds one list: website forms directly, email forwards from venues and directories parsed into an enquiry, and social messages logged with a quick form.
- Each enquiry has a date, guest count, budget if given, venue and source, and a stage: new, replied, quote sent, tasting booked, decided.
- Replies can be drafted from templates for each event type, with AI help to personalise from the enquiry details, for your team to check and send.
- Tasting slots are published from the chef's calendar in Microsoft 365 or Google Calendar, and clients book one from a link.
- Follow-up prompts appear at the intervals you choose, and quiet enquiries are marked rather than forgotten.
- When an enquiry books, it becomes an event with its details carried across. When it is lost, the reason is recorded.
| Stage | What happens | Prompt if stalled |
|---|---|---|
| New | Reply sent from template | Unanswered after a set time |
| Quote sent | Proposal and menus shared | Follow-up after your chosen interval |
| Tasting booked | Client picked a slot | Reminder before the tasting |
| Decided | Booked or lost, with reason | None |
If you already use HubSpot or another CRM, we build this inside it rather than adding another tool.
A clear view of who is still deciding
Anyone in the office can see where each enquiry is and what happens next. Tastings are booked into slots when the chef is actually free, and reminders reduce no-shows. Follow-ups go out because the system asks, not because someone remembers.
After a season, you can see which sources bring the enquiries that book, which is useful when deciding which venues and directories are worth your time.
Recognise this?
- Enquiries arrive through four or more channels.
- You are not sure how many enquiries are still open.
- Tastings are arranged by email back and forth.
- Follow-ups depend on someone remembering.
- You do not know which sources bring the most bookings.