Gmail for sales: how to set up labels, templates and an overview of open enquiries

BOTrento Team9 October 2026 · Updated 12 October 20269 min read

Step by step: a label system that shows the status of each enquiry

The most common mistake is to label by client or by type of event. For sales it is far more useful to label the status, in other words who has to take the next step. A number at the start of the name keeps the labels in the right order in the left-hand panel, and short names without spaces are easier to search for.

1. 1-new – the enquiry has arrived and nobody has responded yet.
2. 2-waiting-on-us – we need to gather information, work out a price or check availability.
3. 3-quote-sent – the quote has gone out and we are waiting for the client.
4. 4-won – the client has confirmed.
5. 5-closed – the client declined, went silent or the enquiry was not a fit for us.

The rule is simple: every enquiry thread has exactly one status label. When the status changes, you remove the old label and add the new one. If you also want to know who owns the case, add a second set of labels with names (for example own-anna, own-peter).

Filters that label enquiries for you

Manual labelling of new emails soon gets dropped, so set up filters:

• emails from the enquiry form on your website (they usually have the same sender or subject) → label 1-new,
• emails sent to an address such as enquiries@ → label 1-new,
• subjects containing words such as “enquiry”, “quote” or “price” → label 1-new (expect the odd false match here).

The easiest way to create a filter is from a specific email: open it, choose the option to filter messages like this one from the menu, and adjust the conditions.

Reply templates: what to prepare and how to write them

Gmail can save frequently used text as a template. You switch the feature on in the settings (in the advanced tab) and then insert a template while writing an email via the three-dot menu. For sales, these four are worth having:

• acknowledgement of the enquiry plus a request for missing details,
• a cover email for the quote,
• a first reminder after the quote,
• a polite close when the client does not reply.

A template should be a skeleton, not finished text. Mark the places to fill in with square brackets so they are not overlooked. Here is an example of a first reply for an event or production company:

Subject: Re: [original subject]

Dear [name],

Thank you for your enquiry about [type of event / equipment]. To send you an accurate quote, we need a few more details:

– date and time (including set-up and take-down),
– venue,
– approximate number of guests,
– whether you will operate the equipment yourselves or want us to provide that.

Once we have these details, we will send the quote by [deadline]. If a call is easier, phone us on [number].

Kind regards
[name, position]

For more ready-to-use wording, including the first reminder after a quote, see five email templates for replying to sales enquiries.

Overview of open enquiries: saved searches and a morning check

Labels on their own watch nothing. What does the watching is a set of search queries, which you can save as browser bookmarks or display as separate inbox sections (the multiple inboxes option in the settings).

Be careful: the “older than” condition refers to the date of the message, not the date the label was changed. For quotes it is therefore worth checking the last reply in the thread as well.

A five-step morning check

1. Open the query for new enquiries and either answer each one or move it to “waiting on us”.
2. Go through “waiting on us” and decide for each thread who will act and by when.
3. For quotes with no response, send a reminder or snooze the thread (using the snooze function) until the day the reminder should go out.
4. Relabel closed cases so they do not clutter the overview.
5. Once a week, count how many enquiries came in and how many quotes went out. For ideas on what to track, see the article on six weekly sales KPIs for a small business.

Sharing within a team: what to watch for

Labels and templates belong to a specific mailbox. If every salesperson has a personal mailbox, each has their own system and there is no shared overview. Two approaches tend to work in practice:

• One shared mailbox for enquiries (for example enquiries@) that all salespeople can access, for instance through delegation. Everyone then sees the same labels and filters.
• Forwarding to a shared mailbox – salespeople write from their own addresses, but copies of enquiries are collected in one place.

Whichever you choose, agree three rules: who “takes” a case (a label with a name), who labels new emails that the filter missed, and who does the morning check when the responsible person is away. The exact sharing options depend on how your Google Workspace administration is set up, so confirm them with your administrator.

Where self-service in Gmail runs out

The system described works as long as people follow it with discipline. It typically breaks down in these situations:

• Peak season. When more enquiries arrive at once, labelling and the morning check are the first things to be skipped.
• Data outside email. Equipment availability, price lists or a calculation in progress sit in a spreadsheet, so every reply means switching between tools.
• A template is not a reply. A template still has to be completed by hand according to the content of the enquiry. Gmail will not do that work for you.
• No status history. Gmail does not show how long a case spent in each status, or who changed what and when.

If you already use a CRM, it is better to move the logic of statuses and next steps there; see Pipedrive follow-up with a scheduled next step on every deal or AI on top of your CRM for drafting replies and quotes with approval. Email then stays a channel, and the record lives in the CRM.

How BOTrento handles it: a managed process on top of your mailbox

BOTrento Chief of Staff does not replace Gmail. It is a managed process that works on top of one mailbox and one record (a CRM or spreadsheet) and does exactly the work that gets skipped in self-service:

• recognises a new enquiry and writes it into the record,
• prepares a draft reply or quote from your materials,
• watches where the next step is missing and suggests a reminder.

Nothing is sent without approval by a person. Draft emails and quotes are always reviewed and approved by someone on your team.

The AI runs on your own API keys (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Google Gemini and others), so you pay the provider directly with no mark-up. Keys are stored encrypted, only the last four characters are visible and you can remove them at any time; details are in the help page on your own API keys. We store data on servers in Germany (EU). The text needed for a specific task is processed by the model provider you choose, and commercial API providers do not use data for training. Note that your own server in the EU that calls an external AI API is not a closed computation.

It starts with a 14-day free trial, with no payment card and no API key of your own. The 14 days begin with your first successful data upload. In an internal pilot, the process handled 35 enquiries, 18 emails, 24 quotes and 15 actions in 7 days. A step-by-step process demo shows how a single enquiry moves through, and the terms of the trial are on the 14-day free trial page.