A message sent at eleven at night
A restaurant owner types into your website form late on a Sunday: 'Need help urgently. Employee walked out, now threatening to take us to tribunal. What do I do?' The form asks for a name, email and message. It lands in info@ alongside newsletters and supplier invoices. On Monday someone forwards it to a consultant, who rings at lunchtime. By then the owner has called two other consultancies, and one of them picked up.
Most HR consultancies win clients at exactly this moment: an owner who has never needed HR help until suddenly they need it very badly. The enquiry process is rarely built for that moment.
Why enquiries go cold
- The contact form is the same one used for every other question, so nothing marks an urgent case as urgent.
- The form does not ask the questions that decide who should call back and how quickly.
- Enquiries go to a shared inbox that nobody owns at weekends or evenings.
- The consultant who calls back starts with no background and has to ask everything.
- There is no record of how enquiries turn into clients, so nobody can see where they are lost.
What it is costing
The obvious cost is lost clients: owners in a hurry go with whoever responds first and sounds organised. The less obvious one is time. Consultants spend first calls collecting basic facts, and some calls turn out to be for things you do not offer. Enquiries that are not urgent, such as a business wanting a handbook, get mixed up with ones that are, and both are handled slower than they should be.
| Enquiry type | What the owner needs | What intake does |
|---|---|---|
| Live dispute or walkout | A call soon | Flags as urgent, offers first available slot |
| Planned restructure | A proper conversation | Books a longer consultation |
| Contracts and handbook | A quote | Collects headcount and sends to proposals |
| Something you do not cover | A pointer elsewhere | Polite reply with your chosen referral |
How we build enquiry intake
- The website form becomes a short guided flow: what is happening, how many staff, what sector, is there a deadline or a meeting coming up, how would you like to be contacted.
- Answers are sorted into enquiry types and urgency using rules you set. Where the free text is ambiguous, a model such as OpenAI's or Anthropic Claude suggests a category, and a person can change it.
- Urgent enquiries are offered a booked call immediately from consultants' shared calendar, using a tool such as Microsoft Bookings or Calendly, and the duty consultant is notified by text or Teams.
- Non-urgent enquiries receive an acknowledgment that explains what happens next, in your wording, and go to the right person's queue.
- Each enquiry creates a record in your CRM, such as HubSpot or Pipedrive, with the answers laid out as a one-page summary for whoever calls.
- After the call, the consultant marks the outcome: new client, one-off job, referred or not proceeding. A simple report shows where enquiries come from and where they are lost.
Nothing in the flow gives advice. The owner is told clearly that a consultant will call, and the flow is written so it never suggests what they should do about their employee.
What the team notices
Urgent enquiries reach a consultant quickly, with the facts already laid out. Owners get a booked time rather than a promise of a call back, which is reassuring when they are anxious. Consultants start calls with context. Directors can finally see how many enquiries arrive, how quickly they are handled and how many become retained clients.
Is your enquiry process like this?
- New enquiries land in a shared inbox with everything else.
- Urgent cases look the same as routine ones until someone reads them.
- First calls are mostly spent collecting basic facts.
- Weekend and evening enquiries wait until Monday.
- You do not know how many enquiries you lose, or why.