Create a simple enquiry log you will actually use

Start with the question the log must answer

At any moment, you should be able to answer: who is waiting for us, what do they need, and what happens next? A small business does not need an elaborate sales system to do this. Start with a shared spreadsheet that the people answering calls and forms can reliably update. Choose one place of record; an inbox, a notebook, and a second spreadsheet will quickly disagree.

Our suggested columns are enquiry ID, received date, contact reference, service requested, town or service area, source as reported, owner, status, next action date, and outcome. Put a short definition above the table. An enquiry means a real request for a service conversation; a supplier pitch or an empty spam form does not qualify.

Make statuses useful rather than decorative

Google Sheets supports dropdown lists. Use that feature to keep status spelling consistent, then decide what each status means for your team. A workable starting set is New, Awaiting us, Awaiting customer, Scheduled, Won, Closed, and Spam. Avoid treating every contact attempt as a new stage.

For each open row, require an owner and a next action. “Awaiting customer” alone can sit untouched forever. “Awaiting customer; Maya to check whether Tuesday works on October 15” tells someone exactly what to do. If a customer asks you to stop following up, record that instruction and close the task.

A worked example of one enquiry, three contacts

Imagine a San Jose homeowner submits a fence repair request on Monday, calls Tuesday, and sends photos Wednesday. Create one enquiry, E-104, then add dated notes to it. The service remains fence repair; the latest next action becomes “Estimator to confirm whether a visit is needed.” Three contacts are not three new potential jobs.

If that homeowner returns months later for a separate deck project, a second enquiry can be appropriate. Write this rule down: merge repeat contact about the same request; create a new row for a distinct buying decision. For referrals, record “customer referral, self-reported” rather than inventing a website source. Unknown is a useful, honest source value.

Keep the sheet lean and review it weekly

The FTC recommends keeping personal information only when there is a business need. For this log, use a contact reference to your existing customer record where possible. Avoid copying payment details, personal documents, or long private conversations into a broadly shared marketing sheet.

Once a week, filter open enquiries by next action date. Resolve overdue tasks first, then check duplicates and missing outcomes. At month end, count unique enquiries received, qualified opportunities, and wins separately. Keep a short note about incomplete records so a tidy chart does not imply perfect data.

Keep historical outcomes when ownership changes. If an estimator hands a request to the office, update the owner and next action without erasing the earlier notes. This lets the person covering tomorrow understand why a customer is waiting and avoids making them repeat the same story.