Quote requests on WhatsApp, and none of them slip through

What to ask before you give a price.

Most requests arrive as one line: “How much for a move?” You can’t price that, and “it depends” with no question after it loses the customer. The fix: ask the three or four questions without which there is no price, straight away.

Movers: from where to where, which floor and whether there’s a lift, which large items, and what date.

Renovation: which room, roughly how many square metres, what gets replaced and what stays, and when they want to start.

Events and catering: the date, the number of guests, the venue, and whether it must be kosher.

Write these questions for the assistant once, and it asks them in every conversation, at 11pm too. If you gave it a price list, it can also give a starting price.

After 24 hours, WhatsApp changes the rules.

Anyone on the official WhatsApp Business API, us included, works inside a 24-hour window. It reopens with every message the customer sends, and inside it you can write anything. Once it closes, you can send only a message template Meta approved in advance, and Meta charges for every such template. Since 1 October 2026, ordinary messages inside the window are charged too, beyond 1,000 a month per number. The WhatsApp Business app on a phone doesn’t have this rule.

So send the quote and the first follow-up within 24 hours of the customer’s last message. For a customer silent longer than that, prepare a short template in advance, for example: “Our quote holds until Thursday. Shall we book you a date?” Meta may class a template like that as marketing, its most expensive rate.

Our follow-up keeps to this rule by itself: an ordinary message goes out only inside the 24 hours, and after that only a step you set up as a template.