A steel business does not lose orders because the team is lazy. It loses them because the enquiry, the rate, the booking and the credit sit in four different places.Monday: bring every WhatsApp enquir
A steel business does not lose orders because the team is lazy. It loses them because the enquiry, the rate, the booking and the credit sit in four different places.
Monday: bring every WhatsApp enquiry into one list
Take the enquiries that are open right now — the ones sitting in individual phones and in the sales group. Put them in one list. Columns: dealer name, what he asked for, what rate you gave, what is the next step, who owns it. Do not make it fancy. A sheet is enough. The point is that the enquiry stops living only in a chat thread. At the end of the day, one person reads the list and asks: which of these is still waiting for us? That single check is the habit. Dealers do not need to change anything. They keep sending WhatsApp messages. Your team now has a place to put them.
Tuesday: send the rate at one fixed time
Pick a time when the morning rate is ready. Send the same rate to all dealers at that time, from one place. If the rate changes during the day, send the change on the same channel. Keep a copy of what went out. Ask dealers to reply with a simple “OK” so your team knows who has seen it. This is not about more messages. It is about stopping the same message from being sent many times, and stopping a dealer from quoting yesterday’s rate because he missed a call. Your sales head should be able to open one screen and see the rate that went out. The rate still comes from you. The only change is that it stops being a memory test.
Wednesday: put bookings and pending lifting on one page
Open the diary. For each booking, write: dealer, material, what was booked, what is still to be lifted, and the next date you expect movement. If the dealer says “I will lift tomorrow”, that is the next action, not a note in someone’s head. Review this page before the day ends. Your team can then call only the dealers who need a reminder, not every dealer on the list. The diary can stay if you like it. But the business should not depend on one person turning the page. When a dealer calls, anyone should be able to answer what is pending without walking to a desk.
Thursday: see dealer credit before the next booking
Add one more column to the same view: the agreed credit line for each dealer, and where he stands against it. Keep the note to the rule, not the figure. Set a simple rule: if a dealer is past the agreed line, the next booking needs the sales head’s approval before it is confirmed. This stops the surprise at month end. It also stops your team from making a private exception that nobody else knows about. The rule should be written down. If you use AiRM-C, the rule can sit next to the booking, so the person taking the order sees it before confirming.
Friday: check what changed, not what was promised
At the end of the week, sit with the list. Ask three questions. Which enquiries are still open? Which dealers did not receive the rate on time? Which bookings are still pending lifting? Do not look for a big report. Look for the one place where the work is visible. If the list is already saving your team from memory calls, keep it. If it is not, make it smaller. One page that people actually use is better than a full system that nobody opens. The owner’s job is not to run the list. It is to ask for it once a day until it becomes normal.
What changes for you
You stop asking “did anyone reply to that dealer?” You stop hearing “I thought he would lift today.” You stop finding out about a credit problem after the truck has left. The enquiries, rates, bookings, pending lifting and dealer credit sit in one view. Your team still does the work. The difference is that the work leaves a trail. When you walk into the plant in the morning, you can see what is open before the phone starts ringing. That is the change. Not a new way of talking. A new way of knowing.
A simple way to run it
AiRM-C CRM is built for steel makers, distributors and sales heads who sell through dealers. It keeps WhatsApp enquiries, rate sends, bookings, pending lifting and dealer credit in one place. If you want to see how it fits your business, the page is here: https://profezzo.com/crm-software. Start with the list on Monday. You do not need to change everything in one week.