“Have you got it, and how much is it?” is the most common question a builders merchant answers all day, and the one that ties up your best counter staff on the phone instead of selling. AI can handle the routine enquiries so your team handles the customers who need them.
Why stock and price enquiries eat your day
Trade customers want fast, accurate answers: is it in stock, at which branch, and what is my price? Each of those answers lives in your ERP, but getting it out means someone stops what they are doing, looks it up, checks the customer’s contract pricing, and reads it back, often several times for the same job. Multiply that across every phone call and counter query and you have hours of skilled time spent reading numbers off a screen.
When the counter is busy, enquiries queue, customers wait, and some ring the merchant down the road instead.
What OptiFlow does
OptiFlow is an AI layer that answers stock and price enquiries directly from your existing system. A customer or a member of staff can ask in plain language, by email, message or chat, and OptiFlow looks up live availability across branches and returns the correct, account specific price, pulled from your ERP in real time. It handles the routine “in stock?” and “what is my price?” questions instantly, and hands anything unusual to a person.
Because it reads your real data, the answers are the same ones your counter team would give, just faster, and without pulling anyone off the job.
How it works
- Ask, the enquiry comes in however the customer already contacts you: email, web chat, or a message.
- Look up, OptiFlow queries live stock across your branches and the customer’s contract pricing in your ERP.
- Answer, it replies with availability, branch, and the right price for that account, in seconds.
- Escalate, special orders, credit questions or anything ambiguous are passed to a human with the context attached.
Accurate because it uses your data
OptiFlow never guesses at price or stock. It reads the live figures in your system, so contract pricing, special deals and branch level availability are always correct. And it does this without replacing your ERP, it layers on top of Kerridge K8, Intact iQ, Ibcos Gold and others. No migration, no new system to learn.
See how OptiFlow answers routine stock and price enquiries from your own system. Get a quote →
Related reading: automating order entry, delivery scheduling, and the full AI for builders merchants overview.
Related pages: meet Otis, the AI agent, implementation and go live.
Frequently asked questions
Will the prices OptiFlow quotes be correct for each customer?
Yes. OptiFlow reads live contract and account pricing directly from your ERP, so each customer gets their own agreed price, the same figure your counter team would quote, rather than a generic list price.
Can it check stock across multiple branches?
Yes. It queries live availability across your branches in real time and tells the customer where the item is in stock, so you can fulfil from the nearest or best stocked location.
What happens with complex or special order enquiries?
Routine in stock and pricing questions are answered instantly. Anything unusual, special orders, credit queries, non standard requests, is escalated to a member of your team with the enquiry context attached.
Does this replace my counter staff?
No. It removes the repetitive lookups that tie up skilled staff on the phone, so your team spends more time selling and helping customers with the enquiries that genuinely need a person.