A company opens its twentieth branch. The build is planned meticulously, the stock is right, the staff are recruited and trained on the operation.
In the six weeks around opening, that branch fields more enquiries than it will in the following year. When does it open, what does it do, is it the same as the other one, where do I park, are you taking bookings yet, do you have this in stock.
They are answered by people who started three weeks ago, inconsistently, while trying to open a shop. Most of the answers exist at nineteen other branches and none of them were written down for this one.
Step 1: write the location answers before opening
Hours, address, parking, access, what it offers and what it does not, prepared weeks ahead rather than improvised on the day.
Step 2: reuse what the other branches know
Nineteen sites have already answered every general question thousands of times, and none of that reaches the new team unless somebody moves it.
Step 3: publish the opening date clearly and early
With what happens before it. The single most asked question and the one most frequently answered with a vague soon.
Step 4: take enquiries before opening
Bookings, waiting lists and interest, which is revenue available from the day the sign goes up rather than from the day the doors open.
Step 5: answer the is it the same as the other one question
Explicitly, in both directions, since customers assume identical and are frequently wrong in ways that matter.
Step 6: get the listings right from the start
Hours, address and details across every directory and map, which is the decay problem in opening hours that differ by site.
Step 7: answer the practical arrival questions
Parking, entrance, transport and accessibility, which for a new location nobody has ever visited are the questions that decide attendance.
Step 8: handle the temporary arrangements
Opening hours during the first weeks, partial services and anything not yet running, stated honestly rather than discovered.
Step 9: protect the new team from the general questions
They are learning a business and opening a site. Anything answerable from written information should not reach them at all.
Step 10: prepare for the launch event volume
Which arrives in a few days and overwhelms whatever was planned, in the same way as holiday season enquiry surge.
Step 11: capture the local enquiries properly
A new branch's first customers are its most valuable, and the contact details gathered in the opening weeks are the base of its first year.
Step 12: report what people are asking
The opening questions reveal what the local market expects, which is genuinely useful and is never recorded.
Step 13: keep answering after the opening fades
The volume drops and the questions continue, which is the ongoing case in launching a new location and the enquiries that follow.
Step 14: let the new branch answer like the other nineteen
An assistant carrying the network answers plus this site's specific details handles the opening surge, takes bookings before the doors open and protects a team of three week old staff from questions nineteen other branches already know the answer to. Set it up through install the widget and train your bot. The hospitality version sits in opening hours and parking questions every restaurant gets. The sector view sits under b2b.