Getting Website and WhatsApp Enquiries Ready for the Diwali Rush: A Guide for Indian MSMEs

The festive weeks before Dhanteras and Diwali bring more enquiries than most small teams can answer one by one: gift hampers, bulk and corporate orders, delivery cut-offs, festive timings. The best preparation is not a clever chatbot. It is a festive FAQ your team agrees on, a short list of details to collect for every bulk enquiry, clear handover rules and honest festive hours, all set up before the rush starts.

This guide is for Indian MSMEs that receive enquiries through a website and WhatsApp: sweet shops, gifting and hamper businesses, packaging suppliers, caterers, home-decor sellers, printers and anyone else whose busiest weeks are the run-up to the festival.

A familiar festive problem#

A hamper business in Pune gets a website enquiry late at night: "Need 150 hampers for our office, can you deliver to Hinjewadi before Dhanteras? What is the price?" The next morning there are twenty similar messages across the website and WhatsApp. Half do not say the quantity. Most do not give a delivery location. Two have asked for a GST invoice. Someone has to message every customer back just to understand the request.

Every one of those messages could have arrived with the details already filled in.

Step 1: Write a festive FAQ your team agrees on#

Before you train any assistant, write down the answers your staff give most often during the festive season, and agree on one version of each. Typical questions:

• What festive products or hampers are available this season?
• Until when can we take orders for delivery before the festival?
• Which cities and PIN codes do you deliver to?
• Do you take bulk or corporate orders? Is there a minimum quantity?
• Can hampers be customised with a logo or a message card?
• Do you provide GST invoices?
• What are your shop or office timings during the festive period, and which days are you closed?
• What is your cancellation or change policy for festive orders?

Write each answer the way you want it said. If an answer depends on the order ("price depends on quantity and contents"), say that, and say what the customer should share so you can quote. Do not publish a price you may need to change in the middle of the rush.

Add this FAQ to your website as a visible festive page, and use the same text to train your assistant. In Pivra, you can add it as a plain-text source or upload a document, alongside your website pages (training sources). When something changes, update the source and retrain, so the assistant does not keep repeating last week's cut-off (keep your chatbot up to date).

Turn on strict mode if you want the assistant to answer only from your approved material and politely decline everything else (improving responses).

Step 2: Decide what every gifting or bulk enquiry must include#

A bulk enquiry is only useful when your team can act on it without a second round of questions. Decide the minimum details now:

• Name and mobile number or email.
• Company name, for corporate orders.
• What they want: product or hamper type, any customisation.
• Quantity.
• Delivery city and PIN code.
• Required delivery date.
• Whether they need a GST invoice (collect the GSTIN later, only if they confirm an order that needs one).

Ask only for what you will use. If you never deliver outside your city, the PIN code is the first thing to check.

In Pivra, lead capture collects name, email, phone and company, and you can choose which are required (lead capture). Quote capture lets you set your own quote fields, such as quantity, delivery PIN code and delivery date, and stores those enquiries under Leads, where you can filter by quote requests (service pricing and quotes). Lead capture and quote capture are on the Starter plan and above.

For more on choosing fields, see our checklist on what makes a qualified lead. It is written for trade businesses, but the principle is the same: ask for what lets you decide whether you can do the job, how urgent it is and what happens next.

Step 3: Set handover rules before the rush#

Festive enquiries include some that a person must handle: large corporate orders, complaints about an earlier delivery, custom requests and anything involving a payment problem. Write down:

• Which enquiries go to a person straight away. For example, orders above a quantity you choose, complaints and custom branding.
• Who handles them. Name a person and a backup for the busiest days.
• What the customer is told. "Our team will review your enquiry and contact you during business hours" is honest. "We will call you in 10 minutes" is only honest if someone will.

On Starter and above, Pivra's human handoff lets a visitor ask for a person; the AI stops replying, and your team can claim the conversation in the dashboard and reply. If nobody claims it in time, the visitor sees your "team busy" message and can leave a phone number (human handoff).

Step 4: Set up email alerts for new enquiries#

During the rush, the person who handles bulk orders should not need to keep the dashboard open. In Pivra, an Action can send an email whenever a lead is captured or a visitor asks for a person, and you can send different alerts to different addresses (webhook actions and email alerts). Test the alert before the busy weeks start, and check it does not land in spam.

Step 5: Set honest festive hours#

Your assistant can answer questions at any hour. Your team cannot. Separate the two clearly.

With business hours in Pivra, you set your timezone, open and closing times for each day and closed days, and write an after-hours message. Outside your hours, the assistant leads with that message, still answers from your knowledge base and asks for a name and number so you can call back (business hours).

There is no special festive or holiday setting, so plan to edit your hours and after-hours message yourself before and after the festival. For example: "Our office is closed for the festival from [date] to [date]. Orders placed now will be confirmed when we reopen on [date]." Use absolute dates in the message, not "tomorrow", and put a reminder in your calendar to change it back.

Step 6: Decide whether you need WhatsApp too#

Many Indian customers prefer to message on WhatsApp. On Pivra's Pro plan and above, the same chatbot can answer on a WhatsApp number as well as on your website, using the same knowledge base, connected through Meta's WhatsApp Business API or Twilio (WhatsApp channel).

Be clear about why you would use it. Meta now offers eligible small businesses in India Business AI inside the WhatsApp Business app, which can reply around the clock, capture leads and book appointments (Meta). If WhatsApp is your only channel and simple replies are all you need, compare that first. A tool like Pivra is more useful when you want the same approved answers on your website and WhatsApp, structured enquiry details in one place and a team handover path.

Step 7: Tell customers what you collect and why#

When you collect a name and number, say why: to respond to the enquiry. Link your privacy policy. India's DPDP Rules require standalone, clear and simple consent notices that explain the specific purpose for collecting personal data, with an 18-month phased compliance timeline (PIB). This is not legal advice; take advice for your own business.

A pre-festive checklist#

• Festive FAQ written, agreed and published on the website.
• Assistant trained on the FAQ and tested with 20 real festive questions.
• Lead and quote fields set for bulk and gifting enquiries.
• Handover rules and a named person and backup.
• Email alerts tested.
• Festive hours and after-hours message ready, with a reminder to change them back.
• Privacy notice at the point of collection.

Next step: write your festive FAQ this week, then see how Pivra works and test your assistant against it before the rush begins.