No.
You don't need a CRM.
Why
At 30 inquiries a month, you're handling roughly one a day. The issue isn't volume — it's that WhatsApp threads and phone notes scatter across your phone with no single moment where you say "did I reply?" A spreadsheet and one automation will close that gap entirely.
What you actually need
- Google Sheets, free — one row per catering inquiry, columns for name, date, what they want, and a follow-up date; this becomes your single place to look every morning.
- WhatsApp Business app, free — replace your personal WhatsApp with this; it gives you labels (e.g. "New inquiry", "Awaiting deposit", "Confirmed") so you stop losing threads in a scroll.
- A habit — the 9am check — every morning, open your Sheet and your WhatsApp Business labels, and action anything with today's follow-up date before you start baking.
Do this today
Open WhatsApp Business on your phone, go to your last five unanswered catering threads, and apply the label "Follow up today" to each one. You'll surface every stalled conversation from this week in under ten minutes and can reply to each before lunch.
What to ignore
You do not need HubSpot, Pipedrive, or Zoho Bigin. Any sales rep pitching you a paid CRM for 30 WhatsApp inquiries a month is solving a problem you don't have — those tools assume pipelines, multiple team members, and deal stages that your Manchester bakery operation simply doesn't have yet.
What doing nothing costs you
A conservative 15% slippage on your 30 monthly inquiries means roughly 4 to 5 lost catering jobs a month going to competitors because customers chased you and gave up. At even a £150 average catering order, that's around £7,500 a year walking out because of missing follow-ups.
When to revisit this
When you hire a second person who also needs to respond to WhatsApp inquiries and you start stepping on each other's replies.