Quote requests arrive by e-mail. Quotes come out of the ERP.
La Vénitienne makes made-to-measure blinds and sells them through a network of 1,000 resellers and installers. Their requests arrive by e-mail, in every format: a line in the message, an Excel table, a PDF purchase order, the photo of a sketch. The AI reads them, splits them product by product and creates the quote in the ERP, at the client's price.
- Each request is opened, read, then keyed into the ERP by hand.
- Formats change from one reseller to the next: free text, PDF, Excel, photos.
- Dimensions arrive in centimetres, in metres, or not at all.
- The quote promised within 48 hours depends on the morning's pile of e-mails.
- The quote inbox is read as messages come in, attachments included.
- Each product requested becomes an item, filed under its family.
- The quote is created in the ERP, at the client's price and discount.
- The team only picks up the requests flagged “to check”.
From e-mail to quote, in five steps
Each step replaces a task the team used to do by hand. Whatever cannot be done with certainty is flagged, never guessed.
- 01
Receipt
The quote inbox is collected by ODESA, on the company's server, in a data application. Every message and its attachments are read: PDF, Excel, Word, CSV, scans and photos.
Find the attachment, open it, copy it out.Everything is read, even the photo of a sketch. - 02
Splitting
The AI splits the request into items, one per product requested, across 13 families: aluminium venetians, vertical blinds, pleated blinds, roller blinds, fly screens… Dimensions are converted to millimetres and the site reference is found.
Re-keying line by line, unit by unit.One item per product, already filed under its family. - 03
Client
The sender's address finds the client in the ERP, with their price list and discount. An unknown client is never created: the request is flagged.
Look up the account, check the discount.The right account and its terms, straight away. - 04
Configuration
For each item, the AI starts from a configuration the ERP has already accepted and changes only what the client asks for. Each line is checked with the ERP before it is sent: attributes, allowed values, exclusions, limits.
Dozens of options to pick in the configurator.A line that matches the catalogue, or the discrepancy explained. - 05
Quote
One single quote in the ERP per e-mail, with the site reference. The e-mail receives the summary and a status badge: processed, to check or in error. The team is the one that sends the quote.
The quote waits until someone has time.The quote is ready; the team reviews it and sends it.
Business rules, not guesswork
- No default product. If nothing matches with certainty, the item says “not found” and why.
- No dimension, no price. Without a width or a height, the item is incomplete and says what is missing.
- The ERP is the reference. It is queried live, never copied: prices and options are always today's.
- No client created blindly. An unknown sender is flagged to the team.
- The instructions stay with the company. The rules for each family are written in plain language in a table the team reviews and edits, without a developer.
1. Vertical blinds
| Width | 2310 mm |
|---|---|
| Height | 1990 mm |
| Operation type | Cord - bead chain VB |
| Fabric | TECHNI'COLOR BV · white |
| Control side | Right |
| Fitting type | Ceiling with clips |
| Rail colour | White 9010 |
| Control length | 1790 mm |
Non-compliant, 1 rule. Material requested: 50 mm aluminium slats. Allowed for this family: 127, 89 or 63 mm fabric.
The gap between the request and the catalogue is shown to the team instead of being silently corrected.
An advisor that guides professionals
La Vénitienne's new website, built on Tekitisy, hosts a conversational advisor fed with the catalogue: it helps joiners, fitters and resellers find the right range or model, then points them to the product sheet, the quote form or the right contact.
- The full catalogue, from indoor blinds to fly screens.
- Quote requests reach the quote inbox better qualified.
- A single whole: the website, the inbox, the ERP.
How to offer it to your clients
Who for
- Made-to-measure manufacturers: blinds, joinery, shutters, furniture.
- Merchants who receive their trade orders by e-mail.
- Any company whose ERP includes a product configurator.
What you sell
- The study of the client's real requests and the writing of instructions for each product family.
- The gateway to their ERP, installed on their server.
- The go-live, then the follow-up of items flagged “to check”.
Lines that work
“Your quotes are ready in your ERP while you open your e-mails.”
“The AI never guesses a product: it tells you what is missing.”
“Your rules stay yours, written in plain language.”
What clients ask
What if the AI gets it wrong?
It can misread an ambiguous request. That is why it never picks a default product, why each line is checked by the ERP before the quote is created, and why any doubtful item carries the “to check” badge. The quote is never sent to the client without the team.
Do we need to change ERP?
No. La Vénitienne keeps its ERP, queried live. The gateway is written for each company's ERP, its products and its prices.
Is the ERP data copied?
No. The gateway, an ODESA application, runs on the company's server and reads the ERP on every request: no copy of the catalogue or the prices, so nothing goes out of date.
How do you add a product family?
You write its instructions in the “AI instructions” table: the family's ERP model, the rules specific to its measurements, what to ask the client when information is missing. No development.
What about requests that are not quotes?
The inbox is first sorted by the AI: incoming requests, ongoing exchanges, outgoing messages, everything else. Only incoming requests follow this flow; the others stay filed for the team.
Do you have clients buried in quote requests?
Offer them this case. ProSuite installs, runs and maintains it; you keep the relationship.