Who Handles Overseas Inquiries After Hours? How One Factory Used AI to Respond to Buyers in 51 Countries
Who Handles Overseas Inquiries After Hours? How One Factory Used AI to Respond to Buyers in 51 Countries
2026-09-18
After entering overseas markets, investing in advertising, and obtaining inquiries, the sales team still faces a practical problem: when customers send messages, does anyone reply in a timely manner and continue the communication?
Inquiries that come in at night, product requirements that need to be confirmed repeatedly, conversations in multiple languages, and customers who are temporarily silent after issuing quotations all require continuous investment of time by the team.
Today, we share a real case of an export manufacturing company.
In 48 days, there were nearly 8,000 letters from overseas buyers, more than 60% of which occurred outside the standard working hours of the Chinese sales team.
Who will reply to these messages? How to continue to follow up on customers’ purchasing needs?
An after-hours inquiry will receive an effective reply within one minute.
At 7:26 pm, an overseas buyer sent an inquiry through the advertising form: He wanted to purchase a bending machine, planned to purchase it within a month, and needed installation and training services.
At this time, the Chinese sales team has already got off work.
One minute later, the buyer received a reply: recommended model, equipment price, operation video and product pictures, all delivered together.
Completing this round of reception is DeepSales, Singoo’s AI digital sales product.
Four days later, the buyer came back for another visit. DeepSales continued previous communication, supplemented equipment specifications, and further collected company information.
After the customer provides complete information, manual sales takes over and advances the formal quotation process.
This communication shows the specific role of DeepSales in the business: promptly answering night inquiries, gradually asking for clarification of needs, and allowing sales to continue to promote business opportunities based on existing information.
AI sales agent--DeepSales
More than 60% of customer letters occur after get off work hours
The company introduced today mainly produces bending machines and other industrial equipment, targeting overseas markets such as Southeast Asia and Africa. Inquiries are sent through ad forms and social channels such as WhatsApp, and the sales team is entirely based in China.
Communication records for 48 consecutive days show:
The demand for hospitality caused by the time difference continues to occur at night and on weekends.
Receiving an inquiry often requires multiple rounds of communication. The customer may only say "want a piece of equipment", and the salesperson will need to further confirm the processing parameters, adapted models and delivery countries in order to provide targeted product information.
Coupled with multi-lingual communication in Arabic, Russian and other languages, the team needs to take into account response speed, information accuracy and follow-up at the same time.
The inquiry gap cannot be filled by working overtime
By extending the online time, you can reply to more messages. But for an inquiry to become a business opportunity that can be advanced, three things need to be done:
▪ Screening leads: Ask about needs, product matching and purchasing plans, and identify customers worthy of follow-up.
▪ Clean information: Complete missing information, clarify vague requirements, and organize scattered communication content into business opportunity files that can be used directly by sales.
▪ Continuous follow-up: For customers who have not responded yet, supplement relevant information and continue procurement discussions to give silent clues a chance to become active again.
These tasks occur at the same time as receiving new inquiries. Even if sales work overtime, it will be difficult to continue to take care of them.
DeepSales connects timely response, lead screening, information sorting and proactive follow-up, allowing manual sales to take over key business opportunities with clear needs.
How does DeepSales move inquiries forward step by step?
Open the data background and you can intuitively see the specific work undertaken by DeepSales:
01 Participated in 1500+ conversations, covering 4 social channels including WhatsApp and Facebook.
02 Sent 60%+ external messages, totaling more than 5,000 messages
03 Sent 3000+ replies during non-working hours, covering 1000+ customers; communication covered more than 51 countries and regions.
04 Nearly 1,000 customers have advanced to the verbal quotation stage, and more than 100 customers have reached the quotation production stage, and more than ten of them have completed transactions.
These records present a specific set of human-machine collaboration methods: AI continues to be responsible for the first round of response, demand clarification and data sending, and humans intervene as the procurement discussion deepens.
In more than one hundred "quotation stage" sessions, more than 99% of customers can access manually.
Sales can further confirm plans, advance quotations and business negotiations based on the information collected in the previous stage. News arriving at night is responded to first, and communication records are also available for subsequent sales.
48 days, 1500+ customers continued to receive
What did DeepSales do during this period?
1 | Respond promptly and start communication in the customer’s language Whether a customer comes in through a form or takes the initiative to send a private message, DeepSales will combine existing information to receive the customer, identify the customer's language, and respond in the same language. Among the valid AI first-ring records in this period, the average response time is no more than 80 seconds; more than 90% of customers will receive a response within 5 minutes. Actual responses cover 9 languages including English, Arabic, Russian, and French. Reply in a timely manner so that buyers can continue to express their needs and allow the first round of product communication to begin as early as possible. |
2 | Ask about key needs and provide relevant product information DeepSales combines forms and historical conversations to supplement inquiries about key parameters that affect selection, reducing repeated questioning of known information. Subsequently, matching model, specifications and price information are provided based on the enterprise product library, and product pictures and operation videos are sent to help buyers understand whether the equipment meets their needs. In less than 50 days, AI has sent out nearly 1,000 picture and video messages, providing intuitive information for product communication. |
3 | Collect business opportunity information and prepare for manual takeover As the customer's intention gradually becomes clear, DeepSales continues to collect company information, purchasing plans, location and other information, and records it in the business opportunity file. When the customer requests a formal quotation, begins price negotiation, or discusses a specific delivery date, manual sales takes over, confirms the plan, prepares a quotation, and advances negotiations based on early communication. |
4 | Continuously follow up so that conversations that have been paused for a while can continue. For customers who have not responded for a period of time, DeepSales will combine the existing communication content to supplement parameter questions, send relevant videos or provide service information. A total of 1,000+ active follow-up messages were sent out in this issue, and 200+ previously silent conversations received customer responses. |
From timely reception to follow-up, DeepSales continues to participate in business opportunity cultivation, allowing the sales team to take into account more communication opportunities.
Product information has basis and sales handover has boundaries
For early reception to be effective, it requires both understanding of the customer and accurate use of corporate information.
In the reception configuration of this company, DeepSales will read historical information before replying; model, price and other contents are based on the product library; customer cases need to retrieve relevant information before they can be used; before handing over to manual work, the collected business opportunity information will be recorded.
When the demand exceeds the scope of the existing products, or involves unconfirmed technical issues, specific delivery dates, contract terms, etc., it will be further processed manually.
These configurations allow AI to work around the company's product information and sales process, while also retaining a clear information basis for manual takeover.
DeepSales is responsible for early communication and information collection, and sales is responsible for key links that require professional judgment and clear commitment.
Allow overseas inquiries to be responded to in a timely manner, allowing sales to focus on promoting business opportunities
For overseas companies, every customer inquiry brought by promotion requires follow-up reception and follow-up.
The practice of this company shows how Singoo DeepSales can be integrated into daily sales work: replying to messages across time zones, communicating in a language familiar to customers, providing information around purchasing needs, and handing over the collected information to manual sales for further advancement.
From an overnight message to a formal quotation, DeepSales helps companies pick up and follow up on inquiries.
If your team is also facing problems such as difficulty in covering inquiries at night, difficulty in multi-lingual communication, and time occupied by repeated receptions, please feel free to contact us through the Singoo official account to learn how DeepSales can work by combining your product information and sales process.
Contact Singoo: 17721188551
Telephone: 400-7766-880
