The problem: enquiries arrive and quietly go cold
In a typical MSME, enquiries come from five or six places at once — a website form, WhatsApp, a marketplace inbox, phone calls, a walk-in register, a reference from an existing customer. There is no single place where they all sit, so the only record of an enquiry is often a message on someone's personal phone. When that person is travelling, on the shop floor, or simply busy, the enquiry waits.
Buyers, meanwhile, almost never wait. They message three suppliers and take the one who answers with a sensible number first. This is why two businesses with identical products and pricing can see completely different order books: one replies in eight minutes, the other in two days. Nothing about the product needs fixing. The handling does.