An operations director enquires about fitting out a new site. She has a lease starting in six weeks, a board approving spend at the end of the month, a landlord with opinions, and an opening date already promoted.
A studio replies asking about her style preferences and which colours she likes. She does not reply.
Step 1: recognise what the enquiry actually is
A programme with a deadline, a budget with an approval route and an operational requirement. Design matters, and it is not the thing standing between her and a decision.
Step 2: establish the property position
Owned or leased, lease length, whether it is a new site or a refit, and whether the landlord must approve works. Half of commercial projects are shaped by the lease.
Step 3: establish the programme
Handover date, opening date, any immovable milestone and whether trading continues during works. It determines whether the studio can help at all.
Step 4: establish the budget stage
Approved, being prepared, or an idea. There is no embarrassment in asking, and it decides whether this is a project or a conversation, which is the problem in interior design enquiries without a budget or brief.
Step 5: establish who decides
One person, a board, a franchise or a property team. Commercial proposals fail because they were written for somebody who was not the decision maker.
Step 6: establish the operational requirement
Headcount, covers, throughput, storage, back of house, accessibility and how the space has to work on the busiest day. This is the real brief.
Step 7: ask about the technical constraints
Services, ventilation, power, drainage, fire strategy and anything requiring specialist input. A restaurant and an office have entirely different constraint sets.
Step 8: ask what happens next in their process
A tender, a panel, a presentation or a direct appointment. Knowing the route lets you respond to it rather than guessing.
Step 9: publish your commercial credentials separately
Sector experience, project sizes, whether you handle procurement and whether you coordinate other consultants. Commercial clients will not dig for this, which is the ground in commercial fit out enquiries for design studios.
Step 10: publish your fee structure by stage
Concept, developed design, procurement and site. Commercial clients need to see the shape before they can approve anything internally.
Step 11: say what you do not do
Structural work, principal contractor duties or anything outside your scope, with who you work alongside. Clarity is professional and it avoids a misaligned appointment.
Step 11b: ask what has to stay and what is already procured
Commercial clients frequently have existing furniture, equipment or branded elements that must be incorporated, and sometimes items already ordered by somebody else. Establishing this early prevents a concept built around a clean slate that nobody has and makes the first presentation land as a workable proposal rather than an aspiration.
Step 11c: establish the approvals beyond the client
Landlord consent, planning where relevant, building control and any sector specific requirement each carry their own timescale. Asking about them at the enquiry stage is what lets a studio give an honest answer about the opening date rather than discovering in month two that the programme was never achievable.
Step 12: respond faster than the domestic side
Commercial enquiries carry deadlines and go to whoever engages first, which is the argument in an AI receptionist for interior designers.
Step 13: the vacating side is a service too
Clients leaving a space have their own requirements, as in office clearance enquiries from businesses moving out.
Getting started
Publish commercial credentials, staged fees and what you need to qualify, then capture programme, budget stage and decision route at any hour. SpideyChat for interior designers answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.