An enquiry is how you contact a provider about one of their services, or a company in general, and how they answer you. This article covers sending one, the conversation that follows, and answering as a provider.
Ask about a service
- Open the listing in Services and choose Contact about this.
- Under Your message, say what you need and roughly when. You have up to 5,000 characters.
- Choose Send enquiry.
You need to be signed in; signed out, the page offers Sign in to enquire. The provider sees your name beside the message, even if your profile is unlisted.
Write to a company
Every company page has a General enquiry section, for a question that is not about one of its listings. Type it under Your message and choose Send. Signed out, the section offers Sign in to get in touch; once you have written, it offers View your conversation.
Two limits worth knowing
Ten enquiries per sender in any 24 hours, shared across service enquiries and enquiries to companies. It is an anti-spam measure, not a business limit: it stops one account messaging every provider in a category, which is what makes a directory useless. A real client will not reach it.
One enquiry per listing per sender, ever — and one per company. A second attempt at the same listing does not create a second thread — it keeps the conversation in one place instead of starting a new one beside it.
Statuses
Enquiries have their own set of statuses — not the same ones applications use:
- Sent: on its way, and the provider has not marked it yet.
- Viewed: the provider has marked it viewed.
- Accepted: the provider has agreed to take the work on.
- Declined: the provider is not taking it.
- Withdrawn: the sender pulled it.
Accepted is deliberately not the end. Agreeing to do the work is the start of the conversation, so the thread stays open afterwards, and a provider can still decline later if the work falls through. Only a decline or a withdrawal closes it: after that its status cannot change again.
The conversation
All your enquiries are under Workspace → Enquiries: Received for those people sent you, Sent for yours. Declined and withdrawn ones are hidden until you choose Show closed.
Open one to see the message and its Timeline: every status change and every message, in order. Write under Write a message… and choose Send message. Both sides can keep writing in any status, closed ones included, so a declined enquiry can still take a follow-up question.
A conversation lasts as long as the listing does. Unpublishing a listing keeps its enquiries; removing it deletes them.
Answering as a provider
Enquiries about the listings you offer as yourself come to you. For a company, every member — owner, company admin or recruiter — sees its enquiries and can answer them; a colleague's messages are marked Teammate. See Company members.
On an enquiry you received:
- Mark viewed tells the sender you have read it.
- Accept says you will take the work on.
- Decline says you will not. It asks you to confirm, because it cannot be undone.
If an enquiry is abuse rather than business, Report message sends it to us, and blocking its sender stops their enquiries and messages reaching you — see Blocking and reporting.
Withdrawing
The sender can pull an enquiry with Withdraw enquiry, as long as it is not already declined or withdrawn. It asks you to confirm, and it cannot be undone.
Notifications
- A new enquiry notifies the provider in the app and by email — for a company, every member.
- A status change — viewed, accepted or declined — notifies the sender in the app and by email.
- A new message notifies the other side in the app each time. By email, at most once per conversation every 15 minutes, and not at all if they read it in the app first.
Opening a conversation marks its notifications read. Each of these emails can be switched off — see Notifications and email.