Hobfolk
Department 01 · Enquiries

Answered today.
Not next working day.

An enquiry has a half-life. Hobfolk picks it up on whatever channel it arrived on, answers it properly, files it where the job lives, and hands it to a desk that owns it until it is won or honestly dead.

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You go home. It doesn't.Every promise gets a row and a due dateAnswered the same day, not the next working dayA drawing before the quoteUnverifiable is never a passNine desks, one address eachNothing is sent that a human cannot read backThe folder exists before you price itYou go home. It doesn't.Every promise gets a row and a due dateAnswered the same day, not the next working dayA drawing before the quoteUnverifiable is never a passNine desks, one address eachNothing is sent that a human cannot read backThe folder exists before you price it
The case for it

Enquiries & quoting

A quote is a promise with a number on it. Both halves have to be right.

Most lost work is not lost to a competitor's price. It is lost to three days of silence while the enquiry sits in an inbox belonging to somebody who is on site.

This desk removes the wait. Anything that looks like an enquiry — an email, a web form, a WhatsApp message, a marketplace question, a transcribed voicemail — is read, understood, answered and filed within the hour it arrives, at three in the morning as readily as three in the afternoon.

The rope line — the pipeline, seen end on
The rope line — the pipeline, seen end on
What the desk does

Six things, every day, without being asked

Take the whole desk or one line of it. Everything below is included in the department retainer — there is no menu underneath the menu.
01

Picked up wherever it lands

Email, website forms, WhatsApp, Etsy and eBay messages, LinkedIn, transcribed voicemail. One queue, whatever the channel. No enquiry is anybody's personal inbox problem.
02

Answered the same day, properly

Not an acknowledgement. A real reply: what we understood, what we need, what happens next and when. Short, and it never re-asks something the client already told us.
03

A project folder before a price

The folder is created at first contact, before anything is quoted. Every outbound message on that job files its full text into the folder. The record of the conversation is the folder, not somebody's sent items.
04

Handed to a named desk

One desk owns the thread and everybody can see which one. Two people answering the same client differently on the same day is the most expensive failure in this whole list, and it is designed out rather than trained against.
05

A costed quotation drafted

Priced off one cost sheet — materials, labour, finishing, packing, carriage, margin — never a number somebody remembered. It arrives with a drawing or a render attached, an option ladder, and one option recommended.
06

Chased, on a schedule, until there is an answer

A quote with no reply is chased on a defined ladder and then marked dead on purpose, with the reason written down. A pipeline full of things nobody will admit are dead is worse than an empty one.
Depth

What this desk actually knows

An enquiry desk is only as good as what it knows about how work is won in this trade.

Reading the enquiry

  • Telling a real opportunity from a price-check, a competitor fishing, and a supplier pitching — before any of them reach you.
  • Spotting the missing information that will make the quote wrong: access, programme, finish spec, tolerance, who is providing what, and who is lifting it.
  • Recognising when the client has sent a scope that cannot be built for the budget they have implied, and saying so early rather than pricing it and hoping.

Pricing

  • A cost build-up from one sheet — material, labour at real recovered rates, finishing, consumables, packing, carriage, and a margin ladder that is applied rather than felt.
  • No line priced below the floor cost of making that thing exist. That rule is there because a £3,800 prototype was once offered for an object that needed £4,200 of tooling.
  • Option ladders — good, better, and the one we recommend, with the reasoning attached.
  • Provisional sums and exclusions written where the information genuinely is not there, instead of a number that will have to be argued about later.

Tenders and PQQs

  • Prequalification questionnaires, capability statements, insurance and policy packs kept current so a deadline is never lost to paperwork.
  • Priced proposals built to be forwarded to the person who actually decides, not to the person who asked.

The record

  • A project folder created at first contact, before anything is priced.
  • Every outbound message on the job filed in full into that folder. The record of the conversation is the folder, never somebody's sent items.
  • Dead enquiries stamped dead on purpose, with the reason. A pipeline full of things nobody will admit are lost is worse than an empty one.

The gate does not move: a price is drafted here, and a person releases it. Above your threshold it takes three separate sign-offs, not one.

The run of it

How a job moves through

  1. It lands

    Any channel, any hour. Read and understood, not just logged.

  2. The folder opens

    Before a price exists. Client, job number, correspondence, drawings.

  3. A reply goes out

    Same day. What we understood, what is missing, what happens next.

  4. A desk takes it

    Named owner, visible to everyone, so nobody doubles up on the client.

  5. A quote is drafted

    Costed from the sheet, with a picture of the thing, one option recommended.

  6. You sign it

    Nothing priced leaves the building without a person reading it first.

The limits

What this desk will not do

Every department has a written boundary. A service that claims no limits has simply not found its own yet, and you will find it for them.

Where this desk stops

  • It does not send a quotation on its own. Every price is checked and released by a person. Above your set threshold it needs three separate sign-offs, not one.
  • It does not discount, negotiate or agree a payment plan. Those are commercial decisions and they stay with you.
  • It does not invent a lead time. If the floor has not confirmed a date, the reply says so rather than guessing a date that will slip.
Questions

Asked before, answered here

What if the enquiry is nonsense, or a supplier pitching us?
It is triaged and does not become a job. You see it in a digest rather than in your inbox.
Can it answer in our voice?
Yes — it is built from your existing correspondence, and you approve the register before anything goes out. Most clients find the harder problem is that it is more consistent than the humans were.
Who is the client actually replying to?
A named desk with its own address, on your domain. Correspondence is disclosed as automated in the footer of every message that is.
What about an enquiry that needs a real conversation?
It is answered, then escalated to you with everything already gathered — so the call you make is the second contact, not the first.
Next department

Drawing & visualisation

Because a quote without a picture is a number in the dark.

Open Drawing

Which of the seven is costing you the most this month?

That is the one to start with. Tell us and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right shape for it.

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