Three stores, one inbox: running multi-location retail without the chaos
Every store has its own phone, page and regulars. Here’s how to answer all of them from one place, with local numbers, per-store hours, click & collect and reports that compare your stores.
One store is a business. Three stores is a communication problem.
Each location has its own phone, its own Facebook page or Google listing, and its own way of doing things. Customers message the wrong store. Calls go to a shop that’s closed. Head office has no idea which store is answering quickly and which one lets messages sit for two days. And every new location makes it worse.
This guide covers how to run several stores’ customer messages from one place, without losing the local feel that makes each store work.
1. A local number for every store, answered in one place
Customers like calling their local store. You can keep that and still answer everything from one system:
- Give each location its own local number. Buy an Australian landline number (02, 03, 07 or 08) for each store from inside Colvy and assign it to that location.
- Add an 04 mobile number for texting. Landline numbers are for calls; texts need a mobile number.
- Ring everyone who’s free. Calls ring every available team member at once, in the app or the browser, and whoever answers first takes it.
- Filter by store. In the Command Centre, filter calls by location to see how each store is going.
Every number’s calls, texts and voicemails land in the same shared inbox as your Facebook, Instagram, email and website chat messages.
2. The right person answers
A shared inbox doesn’t mean everyone answers everything. Give each team member a default store and assign conversations to the person who should handle them: the store manager, the online team, the person who knows the product.
3. Opening hours for every store, answered instantly
“Are you open on Sunday?” is the most common question a multi-store retailer gets, and the answer is different at every location. Colvy’s AI reads each store’s hours from your Google Business Profile, holiday hours included:
Opening-hours answers can be sent by the AI on its own, because they’re checked live. Anything trickier starts as a draft for a person to approve.
4. Stock questions, answered from the live catalogue
When your Shopify or WooCommerce store is connected, Colvy’s AI checks live stock and prices before it answers “do you have this in a size 10?”.
For “is it at the Richmond shop?”, Shopify stores with more than one location can turn on stock by store: match each Shopify location to your store on the Shopify integration page, and the AI (in chat and on the phone) answers from each location’s live stock. When a customer rings a store’s own number, or their conversation or contact belongs to a store, it answers for that store first:
Your team sees the same numbers as chips in the inbox’s product search.
5. Click & collect without the confusion
Plenty of multi-store sales are “can you hold it for me?”. Take payment first, so the pickup is a sure thing:
Send a payment link, or create the order right in the chat. The order card shows when it’s ready to collect, and a “thanks for picking up” message goes out when it’s collected.
6. Local campaigns, not one-size-fits-all
A new store opening, a local event or a sale at one location shouldn’t go to every customer in the country. In SMS campaigns you can choose customers by store, so the Richmond stocktake sale only goes to Richmond’s regulars.
Every link in a campaign is tracked, and consent is checked for every number before it sends.
7. Compare your stores with real numbers
Head office finally gets a view across locations:
- Link Reports by outlet show which store’s tracked links led to sales.
- Order and campaign reports can be split by store.
- Calls by location in the Command Centre show which stores miss the most calls.
Before and after
| Problem | Without one system | With Colvy |
|---|---|---|
| Customer calls the wrong store | Transferred, or told to call back | Every store’s number answered from one inbox |
| “Are you open Sunday?” | Answered by whoever sees it, eventually | AI answers from each store’s Google hours |
| Click & collect | Hold it and hope they turn up | Paid in advance, collected, thanked |
| Local promotion | Sent to everyone, or no one | Campaign to one store’s customers |
| Which store is doing well? | Gut feel | Link, order, campaign and call reports by store |
Customers think in terms of “my local store”. Your systems should think in terms of one business.
Key takeaways
- Give each store a local number and answer every store from one shared inbox.
- Let the AI answer opening-hours questions for each store from your Google Business Profile.
- Take payment before click & collect so pickups are a sure thing.
- Send campaigns to one store’s customers instead of everyone.
- Compare stores with link, order, campaign and call reports split by location.
Bring every conversation into one inbox
Messages, calls, reviews and feedback — all in Colvy. Start free.
Get started free
