The short version: A Power Automate flow can log every enquiry into a shared list the moment it lands, send an automatic first message straight away, and flag anything that has gone quiet for a couple of days. It runs on SharePoint and Outlook, both already inside Microsoft 365, so the follow-up happens whether or not you remembered to.
Every enquiry lands in one place
A website enquiry or a Forms submission writes a row into a shared list, not a personal inbox, with a status column: New, Contacted, Booked, Cold. A Power Automate flow fires an automatic first message the moment it lands, something that sets an expectation, "I'll call you today", rather than a generic auto-responder, and pings the right agent in Teams or email so the enquiry is visible to the whole practice, not just whoever happened to open it first. For an architecture or real estate practice with more than one person fielding enquiries, that visibility alone is most of the fix: a lead stops going cold because it stopped being one person's problem to remember.
Built this way, on a SharePoint list and standard Outlook and Teams connectors, it costs nothing beyond the Microsoft 365 licences the practice already has. The moment it grows into a proper shared CRM view across several agents, with linked contacts, listings and matters, that is a Power Apps model-driven app on Dataverse, and that is where a Power Apps Premium licence at NZ$32.40 per user per month enters the picture.
Following up without it turning into spam
A flow checks the list each morning for anything still marked New or Contacted after two business days and flags it, rather than sending the prospect a third automated email pretending to be personal. For a viewing or a site visit, marking it complete in the same list triggers a same-day reminder task while the property or the brief is still fresh, so the follow-up call references something real instead of reading from a script. Between projects, the same idea works in reverse: a quarterly flow reminds you to send one genuine note to a past client. The automation is the reminder, never the message, which is the difference between staying in touch and running a drip campaign nobody asked for.
When it is not worth building
A sole practitioner getting a handful of enquiries a week does not need a flow, a phone alert and a habit of updating one column will do the same job. Build the automation once a second person needs visibility into the same pipeline, or once the volume is high enough that "I'll get to it" quietly becomes "I forgot". And hold off on the full Dataverse CRM version until there are several agents who genuinely need the shared, linked view. A free SharePoint list does the tracking job for one or two people just as well.
Common questions
What's a good way to follow up prospects automatically?
A Power Automate flow can send an automatic first message the moment the enquiry lands and flag anything still sitting untouched after a couple of business days. Built on SharePoint and Outlook, both already inside Microsoft 365, this costs nothing extra to run.
How can I make sure no enquiry falls through the cracks?
Every enquiry writes a row to one shared list the moment it arrives, with a status column, and a flow checks that list each morning for anything still marked new or contacted after two business days. Nothing sits invisible in one person's personal inbox.
How do I keep in touch with clients between projects without it feeling like spam?
Let automation handle the reminder, not the message. A flow that prompts you every quarter to send one genuine, personal note to a past client reads nothing like an automated newsletter, because a person still wrote it.
What's the best way to follow up after a viewing or a site visit?
Mark the viewing complete in the same list, and a flow creates a same-day reminder task while the property is still fresh in your head and theirs. Timing beats wording here.
Losing track of who you've already called?
Tell me how enquiries reach you now and how many people need to see them. Book a free 30-minute call and I will scope the tracker and the follow-up flow.