How to Convert Instagram Enquiries Into Sales

Getting Instagram enquiries is the easy part. A good Reel brings in "price?", "available in blue?", and "do you ship to Kochi?" by the dozen. Most of them never become orders, and not because the buyer said no. The answer came too late, was too vague, or asked them to go somewhere else.

This guide walks through the six places Instagram enquiries leak and how to close each one with Querygen.

Step 1: Turn your posts and Reels into a catalog

Customers don't ask about "SKU 4411." They ask about the tray in the Reel you posted on Tuesday. So your replies need to know what's in each post.

In Querygen, you import posts and Reels from your connected Instagram account into the knowledge base: all of them or a selection. Each item keeps its caption, link, date, and preview. You add what the caption doesn't say, such as price, product code, sizes, and availability. New posts can be imported daily or weekly, or when you refresh. It's a scheduled import, not a live stock feed, so update prices when they change.

Step 2: Answer "price?" comments with a DM about that exact post

Instagram's Private Replies let a business send one DM to someone who commented, within seven days of the comment. Querygen's comment automation uses it like this:

1. Choose the posts it watches: specific posts, or every post on the account.
2. Add keywords such as price, rate, details, or link. Leave them empty to reply to every comment on the chosen posts.
3. Write a few public replies. Querygen picks one at random for each comment, so your comment section doesn't fill with the same line fifty times.
4. Set the DM. It can be a fixed message, or it can pull the price, code, and link from the catalog item for the post the customer commented on, with buttons for the next step.

One automation now covers every Reel you post. The buyer gets the price in their DMs within seconds, and the conversation is open for their next question. The full setup, with triggers you can copy, is in Instagram DM automation: auto-reply to comments.

Step 3: Answer DMs and story replies in seconds

Most buyers who DM have one question and a short attention span. Autopilot answers DMs and story replies from your catalog and FAQs, in the customer's language, and asks the questions your team would ask: which size, which city, how many, needed by when.

Tell it what must go to a person, like discounts, bulk pricing, and custom designs. Those chats are handed to your team with the conversation and the customer's answers already there. Any reply from your team pauses Autopilot in that chat.

Step 4: Save every enquiry as a lead

A lead tracker watches your Instagram DMs for buying signals, such as a price question, a quote request, or an order, and adds each one to your sales board, linked to the chat. Profile attributes store what the customer told you, like product interest, city, and occasion date, so a later campaign or a teammate doesn't have to ask again. If your team lives in spreadsheets, a Flow can add each enquiry to Google Sheets instead.

Step 5: Follow up before the window closes

Instagram gives you 24 hours from the customer's last message to reply. After that you can't message them until they write again. So the follow-up has to happen inside the window.

A conversation follow-up in Querygen waits after your last reply and nudges the customer if they go quiet, for example after 2 hours and again after 20. It stops the moment they reply, and it won't send once the window is nearly over. Something like: "Want me to hold the 12 inch in gold for you? I can keep it until tomorrow evening."

When a customer orders, ask whether you can send delivery updates on WhatsApp. That gives you a way to reach them after Instagram's window, for the next order. See Instagram vs WhatsApp for selling for how the two channels split the work.

Step 6: Hand over at the right moment

Automation should get the buyer from "price?" to "I want the 12 inch in gold for the 14th." A person should handle what comes after that when it needs judgment: a custom message on the tray, a bulk discount, a delivery date that's tight. Querygen escalates those chats with the details already collected, so your team starts at the order, not at "hi."

What this looks like in practice

The Wrapping Store sells gifting and packaging through five Instagram accounts and one WhatsApp number, with no ecommerce website. It gets over 200 Instagram enquiries a month, and about 40% start from Reels and posts. Across Instagram and WhatsApp, Autopilot answered 583 product lookups in 807 conversations from a 1,496-item catalog between 7 April and 11 May 2026, while the owner handled custom orders.

What it costs

Incoming Instagram messages and replies your team types are included in the Querygen plan. Each automated answer or DM uses 1 credit. The plan is ₹9,900 + GST a month with 9,900 credits, and Meta doesn't charge a per-message fee for replying to Instagram DMs. See pricing.

Frequently asked questions