Quotation follow-up and enquiries
Quotation follow-up when the owner is absent
Absence should trigger an agreed deputy or visible waiting status. An AI draft must not become the offer approver because someone is away. Customers still need an accurate contact route and an owner for unresolved questions.
Understand the task
An offer may have a salesperson as owner and a different price approver. These roles are not necessarily interchangeable. Specify who may read, respond, change scope and approve messages. Share only necessary task context during absence handling.
Prepare these inputs
- Offer owner, approver and deputy with distinct permissions.
- Latest customer reply and open questions.
- Agreed waiting status and customer contact route during absence.
A practical workflow
- Check who owns the actual next action.
- Hand over to a named deputy with offer version and open points. Retain permission boundaries.
- If no approver is available, show waiting status. Do not let a scheduled message impersonate personal follow-up.
Worked example, not a customer case
An illustrative example
Illustrative example: a customer requests changed scope during the salesperson’s holiday. The deputy can acknowledge and collect the question but cannot issue new pricing. The price approver receives the task. No draft labels the change accepted before actual approval.
Test failures and exceptions
| Test input | Expected outcome |
|---|---|
| The deputy lacks permission to change pricing. | Wait for the appropriate approver. |
| An automatic message is already scheduled. | Check customer status and approval before any sending. |
Evaluate whether it helps
Track ownerless tasks, unauthorised changes and time to accepted ownership. Record acknowledgements separately from resolved questions. A fast standard reply does not establish a resolved offer revision.
Next step: Write a deputy rule with permitted actions and test a fictional scope change.
Sources and scope
Examples are editorial exercises using fictional information. They do not describe completed customer tests or activated integrations. The authority source below provides AI and data background rather than approval of the exercise.
Want to clarify your own workflow?
Bring one task and a non-sensitive example. Scope, price and timing are agreed individually before work. Reading a guide activates no customer messages or system actions.
Describe your task