WhatsApp CRM · Furniture Shops & Workshops
A WhatsApp CRM for furniture shops and carpentry workshops
Written for how furniture shops & workshops actually work
Showrooms selling ready-made pieces, made-to-order carpentry workshops building from a customer's own size and sketch, and importers selling from a catalogue with real lead times between containers.
Ready-made and imported orders move in days to a couple of weeks; a custom build usually runs three to eight weeks once the wood is sourced, cut, joined and finished. Nothing here is an impulse purchase — a quiet enquiry is normally still comparing two or three workshops, not gone. Follow up at a few days for a quote that went silent, and during a build send a progress photo roughly every couple of weeks so the customer never has to ask.
March into mid-April brings the Avurudu home-refresh buying, mostly living and dining sets timed to arrive before the new year. November and December are the biggest stretch for most of this trade, when new houses get finished and year-end money lands. Underneath the calendar, the two real engines are new-house completions and weddings, both of which are researched for months before anyone messages you.
A normal day in your inbox
- "Tell me the price of this one."
- "Can you make it in a custom size?"
- "Can you make one like this?" (with a Pinterest screenshot attached)
- "Do you deliver to Kandy?"
- "What wood is it — teak or nadun?"
- "I'll give you our room measurements, how do you take them?"
- "How much is the advance?"
- "Do you assemble it? We won't know how."
- "How long does it take to finish?"
- "Can it go up in the lift? We're on the third floor."
Where the deals leak
- Photo or showroom visit
- "How much / can you make it?"
- Measurement and access questions
- Wood, design and price agreed
- Advance paid
- Build or order placed
- Progress updates
- Balance, delivery and assembly
The measurement-and-access conversation happens too late, or never. In a showroom it turns up as "will it fit through my door?" on delivery day. In a workshop it turns up as a piece built to the wrong size for the room, found when changing it costs real money.
Design and price get agreed before either side has confirmed the piece can physically go where it's meant to go. And with a build that runs weeks, the measurements the customer gave in message eleven are three hundred messages back by the time the workshop needs them.
A board that matches your job
Nothing should move past Measurements in without the sizes filled. That one rule turns the board into a check on the trade's worst mistake instead of just a list of orders.
Stage 1
Enquiry
A photo or a question came in. No sizes, no access details yet.
Stage 2
Measurements in
Room size, door width, floor, lift and lane all answered. Only now is a real quote possible.
Stage 3
Quoted
Design, wood, finish and price sent, waiting on the household to decide.
Stage 4
Advance paid
Order confirmed and the build or the supplier order has started.
Stage 5
In build
Structure, then finish. This is where progress photos belong.
Stage 6
Ready to deliver
Finished, balance due, delivery and assembly date being fixed — and the access questions re-confirmed.
Tags worth having
- Ready-made
- Custom build
- Imported / next container
- Living room
- Bedroom set
- Pantry / wardrobe
- Wedding home
- New house furnishing
Set it up once
Everything below happens inside WhatsApp Web, on the number you already use. No API, no new inbox.
Add InboxCRM to Chrome- 1
Make the measurement-and-access set one quick reply
Room size, the width of the door the piece has to come through, which floor and whether there's a lift, whether the stairs have a sharp turn, and whether a lorry can get down the lane. Sent as a normal part of every quote, it reads as thorough rather than nosy — and it is the single thing customers notice about a seller who is actually thinking about their room.
- 2
Store those answers on the contact, not in the chat scroll
Custom fields for room dimensions, door width, floor and lift, wood, finish, advance paid and promised week. Six weeks later the person at the bench needs those numbers, and scrolling back through a chat full of photos to find them is how the wrong size gets cut.
- 3
Say yes to the look, then ask before you quote
A Pinterest photo deserves an honest yes to the design and an immediate question about size, wood and budget. An instant enthusiastic yes with no numbers is a promise that unravels later, and the customer remembers it as being misled even though nobody lied.
- 4
Track the order through its stages, with the money on it
Order tracking holds advance paid, balance due and the delivery date against the order itself. For a build that runs weeks, that record is what lets anyone in the family business answer "where is my wardrobe?" without asking the person who took the order.
- 5
Schedule the progress photo before you forget
One message at the halfway mark with a photo of the structure finished does more for trust than any amount of reassurance. Set it when the advance lands, so it goes out whether or not you remember.
- 6
Re-confirm access the day before delivery
A scheduled message that asks again about the lift and the door width, sent the day before the lorry loads. It costs nothing and it is the difference between a delivery and a sofa standing in a stairwell.
The messages that stall a sale
“"I can give you a size, but I'm not sure it'll fit once it's here."”
Usually means
The household isn't confident about the room or the route into it, and nobody has walked them through checking.What works
Ask for the room measurements and the access route as a standard, friendly part of every quote — framed as something you always do. That reassurance is the sale, not an extra step in it.“"What wood is it — is it really teak?"”
Usually means
Real uncertainty about timber claims, and no way for them to verify it themselves.What works
State plainly what you can actually stand behind about the material, and be honest about what you can't certify. Naming a premium timber to close faster is the claim that costs you the referral later.“"Can you make one like this?" (with a photo from Pinterest)”
Usually means
They want to know honestly whether that look is achievable at a price and timeline they can live with — not a fast yes.What works
Yes to the look, then the three questions the photo can't answer: what size, which wood, what finish. Quote after that.“"How much is the advance, and when is the balance?"”
Usually means
They're being asked to pay someone they've only ever spoken to in a chat, for something that doesn't exist yet.What works
Put the staged structure in writing in the chat — advance to start, balance on delivery and assembly. Never ask for the full amount upfront for work not yet done, and never ask for card numbers, OTPs or banking passwords in the chat.“"Do you assemble it? We won't know how."”
Usually means
For anything large they're really asking whether the whole job is handled, including getting it up the stairs. A pile of parts left at the gate is the fear.What works
Be specific about what delivery includes and what it doesn't, and ask the access questions before delivery day rather than on it. A third-floor walk-up discovered by the driver is nobody's good day.
Quick replies to save first
Copy these, swap the details in [brackets], and save them as quick replies so you stop retyping them.
The measurement and access set
Before we make this, let's confirm it fits the room. Could you tell me: the room size (length x width x height), the width of the door it has to come through, which floor you're on and whether there's a lift, whether the stairs have a sharp turn, and whether a lorry can get close or the lane is narrow.
Reply to a design photo
That's a lovely design, and we can make something like it. To quote you properly I need three things: the room size, which wood you had in mind, and which floor it's going to.
Price asked before any sizes
Good choice. The price moves with the size and the wood, so if you have a rough measurement of the room I can give you a proper quote rather than a guess.
Advance confirmed
Advance of Rs. [X] received, your order has started. We estimate around [X] weeks to be ready — that can shift a little depending on wood availability, and I'll keep you posted.
Delivery day, access re-check
Let's confirm delivery for [day]. Just checking again — there's a lift, and the door is wide enough to bring the piece through?
Free tools that help here: WhatsApp Business Message Templates, WhatsApp QR Code Generator.
The parts of InboxCRM you'll use most
Contact notes and custom fields
Room dimensions, door width, floor and lift, wood, finish and advance paid — held against the chat for the whole six-week build instead of in a scroll.
Order and delivery tracking
Advance, balance and delivery date tracked against the order, so anyone in the shop can answer "where is my wardrobe?" without finding the person who sold it.
Quick replies
The measurement-and-access set as one click, plus photos and videos of past pieces — which is what the household is really comparing between workshops.
Scheduled messages
The mid-build progress photo, the day-before access re-check, and the post-delivery message asking whether it fitted.
Follow-up rules
A quote left sitting for a few days comes back to you, which matters when the household is quietly comparing you against two other workshops.
Questions from furniture shops & workshops
Can I keep room measurements against a specific customer?
Yes — that's what custom fields are for. Make fields for room size, door width, floor, lift and stair turn, plus wood and finish, and fill them before you quote. They sit on the contact next to the chat, so the person cutting the timber six weeks later is working from the same numbers the customer gave you on day one.
Does it guarantee my delivery dates?
No. It won't measure a room, verify a timber species, guarantee a delivery date or replace a site visit for a large custom piece. It holds the details you collected and sends the messages you scheduled. Estimates should still be given as estimates — wood availability and container timelines genuinely move.
We're a workshop with no computer. Can we still use it?
It needs desktop Chrome with WhatsApp Web open, so it suits a showroom with a counter machine better than a phone-only workshop. Scheduled progress messages only send while that browser is running. If you have a computer at home you can do the setup and the follow-ups there and keep replying from your phone during the day.
How do I handle advance and balance payments safely?
Write the staged structure into the chat so both sides have it — advance to start, balance on delivery and assembly — and record the amounts in custom fields or order tracking. Take payment as cash on delivery or a bank transfer with a receipt. Card numbers, CVVs, OTPs and banking passwords should never be typed into a chat.
Can I go back to customers for the next room?
Yes, and this is the most overlooked revenue in the trade. A household that furnished a living room this month is a realistic buyer of a bedroom set later. Tag them by what they bought, then send an individual message when the moment fits. A personal note about their room works far better here than a broadcast.