The enquiry arrives while you are under a boiler. The reply is ready when you surface.
Most of the answers are the same dozen facts.
Do you cover my area. How much is a service. Can you come this week. Do you do landlord certificates. The answers rarely change, but writing them out takes someone away from a job or happens at nine in the evening, and the enquiry that waits two days is often the one that went to whoever answered first.
The harder problem is the reply written in a hurry: a same-day visit promised from a van, a repair priced before anyone has seen it. A quick wrong answer costs more than a slow right one.
Replies ready to check, and a list of what is waiting.
Two things change. A reply is already written when you look, so approving it takes a read. And a queue shows, at any moment, which enquiries nobody has answered and for how long. Our guide to missed and slow enquiries covers the second part with or without software.
It works with a form on your website. It does not answer the phone, and it does not read a shared inbox. If most of your work comes in by phone, it is not a fit yet.
What a heating firm tells it, and what it does with each.
You write these once. Code applies them to every enquiry and every draft, the same way each time.
Where you work
You list the places you cover and the places you do not. An enquiry that names a place on the second list is marked as needing a person before anything is drafted, so nobody is told a visit is possible when it is not.
What you take on
Homes only, no commercial premises, no oil boilers: whatever your line is. You list the words. An enquiry containing them is picked out. A job described in other words is not, which is one reason a person reads every draft.
When you are open
A draft that offers a day you are closed is flagged. A draft that commits to a time your profile does not give is flagged as well, and has to be confirmed by the person approving it.
Prices
A figure appears in a reply only if you published it in your profile. A repair price that nobody has written down is flagged the moment it appears in a draft, whoever typed it.
Promises you never make
Same-day visits, guarantees, a price before an engineer has looked. You list the phrases. A reply that contains one cannot be approved at all, by anyone, until the phrase is removed.
Emergencies
Kogsy does not write safety advice of its own. If a draft tells a customer what to do about a gas smell or a leak and your profile does not say that, the draft is flagged. What your business tells people in an emergency has to be written by you, in your profile, in your words.
A worked example: an enquiry Fernbrook Heating cannot say yes to.
Illustrative. Fernbrook Heating, its customer, its prices and its phone number are invented, and the sample reply was written by a person in advance. Prices are written in pounds. It is the same example the sample uses.
What the firm wrote in its profile
- Opening hours. Open Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm.
- Areas covered. Covers Fernbrook, Ashby Green and the Old Mill district.
- Areas not covered. Does not cover Harbour Point.
- Published price. Annual boiler service: 95 pounds.
- Work not taken on. Homes only. Does not work on commercial premises.
- How visits are booked. The office agrees every visit by phone. Office phone: 01632 960 114.
- Promises it does not make. Never promises a same-day visit. Never prices a repair before an engineer has seen it.
The enquiry (asks for something the business cannot promise)
No heating and it's freezing. I need someone out TODAY at our cafe in Harbour Point. Can you confirm you'll be here this afternoon?
Held for your approval
The drafted reply, before anyone approves it
Thank you for getting in touch, and I am sorry you are without heating. I do not want to keep you waiting on us: we do not cover Harbour Point, and we work on homes only, so we are not able to take this on. I hope you get it sorted quickly.
Why it says that
- It declines because Harbour Point is on the list of areas not covered.
- It declines a cafe because the business works on homes only.
- It makes no promise about today, because the business never promises a same-day visit.
In the sample you can edit this reply and watch the checks fire. Type the words same day anywhere in the reply. It is on the blocked list, so the reply cannot be approved until you remove it.
Where it sits between the jobs.
During the working day
Engineers are on jobs and the office is on the phone. Enquiries arrive through the form on your website and each one is drafted as it comes in.
Between jobs
Whoever approves replies opens the queue and sees what is waiting, the oldest first, with the ones past your reply target marked. Each draft sits beside the enquiry it answers and the checks it tripped.
Approving
Most replies need a read and a click. Some need a word changed. The checks run again on whatever is typed, so an edit cannot slip a promise past them.
Anything unusual
An enquiry outside your area, outside your work, too short to answer, or one the model itself thinks needs a person is held with the reason shown. Nothing is sent about it until someone decides.
The limits, for this trade.
- It is not an emergency service and must not be presented as one. An enquiry form is the wrong place for a gas emergency, and your own site should say where to call instead.
- It does not book visits, read a diary or know which engineer is free. A reply can say the office will ring; it cannot say Tuesday at ten unless a person types that.
- It takes enquiries through its own web form. It does not read an inbox, answer the phone or watch social messages.
- The rule checks match the exact words you list. A place or a promise written another way is not caught, which is why a person approves every reply.
- A model can write a poor draft. Nothing here prevents that. The approval step and the checks are there to catch it.
- Card numbers and typed passwords are removed when they can be recognised. Other sensitive details a customer writes are stored as written.
- A delivery report means the recipient's mail server took the message. It never means the reply was read.
In pilot, and said so.
Kogsy is in pilot. No heating firm is named here as a customer, and no figure is claimed for time saved: a pilot exists to measure that for one business. What is built and what is still being verified is listed on the how it works page.
It runs in your own accounts: your hosting, your database, your mail and your model account. Your customers' enquiries are not copied into a database that Kogsy runs. The privacy page sets out who holds what.
Try the sample, then your own form.
The sample needs no account and sends nothing. A pilot runs on one of your enquiry forms, with every reply held for you to approve.