Instagram

Direct messages that leave something behind

Instagram direct messages arrive in the Falconzo shared inbox. Your team answers from there and records who the sender is, so an enquiry from a username becomes a customer you can find again.

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An Instagram direct message in the Falconzo shared inbox

Why Instagram enquiries are the easiest ones to lose

They arrive in bursts, they are full of important detail, and they are attached to a username rather than a person.

Direct messages tend to follow a post, so they come several at once and they come at the worst moment. A few get answered, a few get read and forgotten, and the ones that got answered leave nothing behind except a thread that scrolls away.

The detail inside them is the part that hurts to lose. Dates, quantities, budgets and allergies are agreed in direct messages and then live nowhere else, which is uncomfortable when the customer arrives expecting what was promised.

Falconzo brings the messages into the shared inbox and gives your team somewhere to put what they learn. A username becomes a lead or a contact, and the enquiry becomes a record.

What Instagram in Falconzo gives you

A place to answer from, and a place for the answer to go.

Direct messages in the shared inbox
Instagram direct messages arrive in Falconzo with your other channels, so a busy hour after a post does not depend on one person watching the app.
Reply from Falconzo
Answer from the screen your records are on. The customer carries on in Instagram exactly as before.
Turn a handle into a customer
A username is not a name, an address or a phone number. Create the lead or find the contact so the person can be found again later.
Conversations on the record
Link a message thread to a contact, company, lead or deal and the enquiry becomes part of the history instead of scrolling away.
The details worth keeping
Notes, tags and custom fields hold the things a direct message actually contains: a date, a size, an allergy, a budget.
Follow-up with a due date
Quotes promised in a direct message are the easiest ones to forget. A task on the record carries the promise instead.

From a username to a customer

The one step that decides whether an Instagram enquiry is worth anything next month.

When this happens
A direct message arrives from an account you do not recognise
A username, a profile photo and a question. That is everything you know so far.
Then
You answer, and you ask what makes them findable
A name, a date, a phone number or an email address turns an anonymous handle into somebody you can serve.
Then
The conversation is linked to a record that lasts
A lead or a contact, with the enquiry attached, so this exchange still makes sense in six months.

Falconzo never decides on its own that a username belongs to one of your customers. Somebody who has read the conversation makes that call.

Five messages after a lunchtime post

One enquiry followed from the first message to the quote.

Connect the account
Connect your Instagram account through the provider's own authorisation screen. Your profile, your posting and your followers are untouched.
A post brings a rush of messages
Take a bakery that makes celebration cakes. A photograph of a christening cake goes up at lunchtime, and by mid-afternoon there are five direct messages asking about dates, sizes and prices.
They queue in one place
Every one of them appears in the Falconzo shared inbox, so they can be worked in order rather than half-answered between customers at the counter.
Answer while the interest is warm
The first reply goes out from Falconzo: yes, that date is free, here is the price for the size in the photo, and what name is the cake for.
Get the detail that makes them a customer
They give a name and a mobile number. That becomes a lead with a source of Instagram and an owner, or, if the number and name match somebody who ordered last Christmas, an existing contact you have found rather than duplicated.
Put the specifics somewhere they will be read
The date of the party, the flavour and the nut allergy go on the record: the allergy in a custom field where nobody can miss it, the rest in a note on the enquiry. The conversation is linked, so the exact wording is there if there is ever a question about what was agreed.
The follow-up is not left to memory
A task says send the written quote by Wednesday, with a name against it. If the customer goes quiet, the task is still there, which is the whole difference between an enquiry and a sale.

Identity

A handle is the thinnest identity you will get

Email gives you an address you can match. A phone message gives you a number. An Instagram direct message gives you a username, which is why linking one to a customer record is a decision rather than a lookup.

Falconzo leaves that decision to your team. Somebody reads the conversation and links it to the right lead, contact, company or deal, and the enquiry sits on the record from then on.

It also means the questions your team asks are worth something. Getting a name and a mobile number out of a friendly exchange is what makes the customer findable the next time, on whatever channel they choose.

Conversations link to leads, contacts, companies and deals
A person confirms the link, so records are not filled in on a guess
Duplicate detection and a merge screen for when the same customer arrives twice

What you end up with

The rush after a post becomes a list that gets worked through rather than a scroll that gets abandoned. Nothing is answered twice and nothing sits unread because somebody assumed a colleague had it.

More importantly, the enquiry outlives the thread. Next year, when the same customer wants the same cake for the same birthday, the date, the flavour and the allergy are on the record, and so is the conversation where they were agreed.