Building the enquiry, adding the venues and sending it to the venues, receiving the replies



Starting a new Enquiry


  • Go to the Enquiries module on the blue menu on the left-hand side. A new tab will open and on the top right-hand side you will see the +New light blue button.



  • Once you click that button you will start to populate your New Enquiry. The first field shows the abbreviation/acronym of your company’s office. 


  • In the next line you will select the client you are creating this enquiry for. You can either type in the client name or if you click on the little globe icon the system will give you a dropdown list with some options. 


  • The system will load the client so you can select the contact. You can follow the same process as the previous field (type in their name or select it from the dropdown list).



  • In the Enquiry Type field you can define if it’s a Conference, an Accommodation or a Supplier enquiry.





  • The Source field refers to where this request for an enquiry is coming from.



  • And to complete this initial part of the enquiry you will have to select the type of event you will need a venue for (e.g. Conference, Meeting, Christmas Party etc.).


  • After completing the first part by filling out the required fields click the Save button on the top right-hand side of the screen. 


  • You will now be directed to the General tab of your Enquiry.


General Tab


  • This tab has two sections:  The General section and the Enquiry section.


  • The general section shows you the last time the enquiry was updated, the name of the company the enquiry is going to be built for and the contact in that company (both fields can be updated by clicking the Edit button next to them), you can check the telephone and mobile numbers as well as the email address the proposal is going to be sent to, once again you can check your office’s abbreviation and the time for the venues to respond your enquiry. 



  • ,In the next column you will find the name of the consultant which is the user who is building the enquiry. The consultant selected for the booking will receive all email correspondence for that booking, if you want to hand the booking over to a colleague be sure to change the consultant as they will get all of the email correspondence. You can also see who is the account manager for that client. 


  • The enquiry status is always New at this stage, you will see again the enquiry type you are creating, the event type and the source where this enquiry came from.


  • Bear in mind that SLA Due will consider Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5pm, so if your SLA Response Deadline says 8 hours you have to consider the time and the day you started your enquiry to get the SLA Due. For example if you started your enquiry on a Friday at 3 pm, the 8 hours will finish on Monday at 12pm.,




  • The second section is the Enquiry section where you will put the name of the event, which is usually given by the client.


  • If the client has advised you of a specific venue they are interested you can enter this venue name into the preferred venues field.


Privacy settings


  • Covert enquiry - Will hide all client details on the enquiry


  • Hide client details - Will hide the client's email address and telephone number but will show the client name



  • Total budget should be filled out if your client has a specific budget, in this case, the venues will be able to see if their quotation can be a good fit. They can also decline the enquiry based on this information.


  • Attendees (day) it’s the total number of people attending the event and right next to it you can add the number of overnight guests if required.


  • You will have to fill out the Primary Event Date, as it’s mandatory but if your client’s dates are flexible you can enter any other dates the client has suggested if the venues can’t offer the primary date. 


  • Note that if you type anything in that box the venues won’t be able to see the primary date because it will overwrite the primary date which could be an issue if your client has a fixed date for the event , please always include the primary date in that box if adding dates into that box.


  • End client name - enter the name of the client if it is different to the name of the contact.


  • Budget per head -  enter this information if required.


  • The approximate numbers can be used if the client is unsure of exactly how many attendees there will be. 


  • The duration field will define how many days the event will last.


  • In the contact OTD (on the day) field you will be able to put the name of the person responsible for the event.


  • In the box Notes for Client & Venue you can add any relevant notes that you think it’s important to be shown on the proposal.


  • In the Enquiry Only Notes box you can add anything that you consider relevant to keep track of, for instance any comment the client made about the event’s date and time.





Conference Rooms tab


  • This is where you enter details regarding the room(s) your client requires, along with any equipment.


  • You will be able to select the room layout they need, for example, theatre style, boardroom, U shape and so on. 


  • The date field should be populated with the date you entered into the General tab.


  • The room type is set by default as Main Room but you can also add a Syndicate(breakout) room in case your client needs breakout rooms in the event.


  • The Programme box is where you will inform the venue what time the event will start, lunch break, if you need coffee and tea if you need the venue to provide lunch, and what time the event is going to finish:



  • On the bottom, the day's box should be populated with the number of days your client requires the room(s), you can also include the number of delegates you are going to need and the Room Title. 


  • After adding all this information, just click on the green Add Room Button. 


  • At this point, you can include any equipment needed by clicking the Select option that you will see next to the room you just added.



  • If you have any guests staying overnight go to the Guests tab.


Guests tab


  • You can add the name of the guest(s) if you already know it, or it can be added later on. If you don’t know their name yet you can just inform the venue the number of bedrooms you will need. 
  • The arrival date field shows the date the guest will arrive, it’s crucial to inform if the guest is arriving the night before the event.


  • You can double-check the number of nights you are quoting, you can add notes if needed, you can select the room type, the sort of package your client requires will need (bed and breakfast, 24h package rate and so on), the system will set the Smoking option as no but you can change it and you can advise of any meal requirements (vegan, kosher etc).


  • You can import your list of guests if already provided by clicking on the Import Guest button and uploading a CSV file.


  • All set, you can click Add Guest.








Questions tab 


  • On this tab you will have all the questions the venue should answer that have been entered by your administrator.



  • It is possible to add a one off question to your enquiry using the Question builder.


  • To add one-off questions just click on the Question Builder button. You can define if the answer will be free text, if it’s a value, if the venue can choose the answer from a dropdown list or if it’s a Yes-No question.









Venues tab

 

  • On the venues tab you will define the venues that are going to be contacted. You can choose the venue according to your client’s preferences or use venues that have been quoted before.


  • Other options are filtering the search according to established criteria that you can set in the Venue Advanced Search or you can just narrow your search down by adding just a little information into the Quick Search Option. You also have the option to do a Map Search where you can visualise the area covered by your search and expand it if needed. 


  • If you know the name of a venue you would like to add to your enquiry you can type the venue name into the quick venue add box and the venue will be added to the enquiry 


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  • Once you choose the venues you will need to add further information to each venue in your inquiry. To do this on the right-hand side there is a View button that will open more details.












View button 



  • You can double check the information displayed in this area just to be sure that you are not missing anything.


  • You will need to select the contact at the venue and add the chargelines but everything else will be completed by the venue when you send out the enquiry 







  • At the bottom of the page you will find the Charges table.


  • We should add the lines for the venue to fill out but they will be able to add more lines to the charges table in case they are charging the client for something we didn’t add,


  • If you are sending the enquiry to more than one venue, you can copy the charges you have added to the other options, you will just have to click the button “Copy to all options”. You will get a confirmation pop up. You will also get a pop up asking if you want to copy the commission rate. You can now click Save at the bottom of the page.



  • If you need to add a venue later  you can click the “Add default charges” below the Charges table and the lines you have set as default will be copied into this venue as well and after checking if everything is correct you can save.


  • You can double check the other venues to be sure that the charge table was copied correctly. 


  • Now you can check the RFP Preview as on the following screenshot. 


  • You’ll find a little document icon between the status of your enquiry and the field where the price is going to be after the venue responds to your enquiry. 


  • If you click on that icon you’ll see the document the venue will see after you send out your enquiry.



  • If you are happy with what you have added then it’s time to contact the venues. You will just have to click the button “Contact Venues”  and you will find it in the same line that the search tools are.





  • Note: If the venue you are contacting can’t meet the requirements of the enquiry such as they don't have bedrooms or the meeting is too small for your event GRATIS will show you this information. This will help you to focus on looking for venues that can offer what your client needs rather than contacting venues that may not be able to help you at the moment.



Contacting the venues


  • You can create an activity when contacting the venues or just save without activity. 


  • In this example, the venue does not have any meeting space.


  • You can remove the selected option and continue, which will take the venue out of your enquiry or if you want to contact them anyway so it will show on the proposal just untick the blue box and click continue.


  • If you need to attach a file to the enquiry you can do it from your computer or from the File Bank and that’s the point where you will do it. 


  • The next step is to click “Select contacts for online enquiry” on the pop up that will appear. 



  • At this point you can double check the email addresses the enquiry is being sent to and select any other email you think it’s relevant. 


  • Any email address that is greyed out can’t be removed as this is the default address that the venue has requested they enquires are sent to. 


  • Now click the green button “Send Online Enquiry” to send it. Your enquiry is now Submitted and you can check at what time it was sent. 


  • Your enquiry’s status will change from New to Requested, which means that it was sent to the venues and you are now waiting for the response.

 

  • If you haven’t heard back from the venues and you want to chase them or ask them any additional questions you must use the “Recommunicate with venues” button.






Responses received


  • After receiving the responses for your enquiry you can check if you have all the information you need so you can create your proposal to send it to your client. 



What would we check?


  • If we had requested various not just one date we could check what the date the venue proposed.


  • Also check the ‘venue response’ (not visible on proposal) box for any additional information.


  • Sort order - you can use this to arrange your list of venues into a specific order or your choosing. Number 1 would be the first venue on the proposal. If you forget to amend the sort order you still have an opportunity to do this at the booking stage.


  • If a venue has declined and you want your client to know that you enquired at this venue you can tick the box for “Inc(lude) in other venues considered?”. 


  • Check the venue has allocated a room(s).


  • Check the charges to ensure the venue has added charges.


  • Check the holding status - provide the cluet with a brief explanation of what they are and tell them that the review date is the date that the venue will hold the space until. So if they don’t hear from you before that date they will release the space 


  • Once you have completed all of the checks for the venue tick the reviewed box next to the review date. 



Convert the enquiry to a booking


  • The next stage is to convert the enquiry into a booking