Auto-Reply to Rental Inquiries: Google Forms to Current RMS to Gmail

Rental inquiries fall through the cracks on both ends. The rental team misses bookings because nobody reads the inbox on a Friday night, and the customer, usually planning an event on a deadline, waits a day or two for a yes-or-no and starts calling competitors. This use case closes that gap on both sides: Google Forms catches the inquiry, Runbear checks Current RMS for availability, and Gmail replies to the customer directly, while your team is still asleep.

The problem with form-to-reply workflows

Forms collect information well. Everything after the submission is manual. Someone reads the notification, logs into Current RMS, looks up the dates, types a reply, and hopes the customer has not already booked elsewhere. Industry data shows responding within 5 minutes makes a lead roughly 21 times more likely to convert than responding at 30 minutes, yet most rental teams average over 40 hours. That delay hurts both sides: the shop loses the booking, and the customer loses time they needed for planning.

• Google Forms and Jotform stop at the notification email to staff
• Current RMS has an API, but nobody on the front desk is writing scripts against it
• Out-of-hours submissions sit untouched until business hours, and customers sit with them
• Requests for items that are out of stock often go unanswered, leaving the customer with no alternative to chase
• The first team to reply tends to win the booking, and it is rarely the slowest one

How the automation works

1. A customer fills out the Google Form with dates, equipment, and contact info
2. Runbear reads the submission and checks Current RMS through an MCP server to see if the items are available on those dates
3. Gmail replies to the customer directly: available with a booking link if stock is there, or not available on those dates, here are the closest options if it is not

The customer never hits a dead end. Available or not, they get a clear answer in minutes, including an alternative when stock is out. The team only steps in when the customer writes back, not to send the first reply.

Setting it up

Connect the Google Form as a trigger

Point Runbear at the Google Form (or a Google Sheet the form writes to) and pick the fields the agent should read. Event date, equipment list, and customer email are the ones that matter.

Add Current RMS as an MCP server

Runbear talks to Current RMS over MCP, so the agent can check inventory the same way a coordinator would in the UI. The MCP connection needs a Current RMS API token with read access to products and bookings.

Write two reply templates

Give the agent two short Gmail templates: one for available and one for not available. The available template confirms the items and dates and invites the customer to book. The not-available template suggests the nearest open dates or a comparable item Current RMS shows in stock. Keep the tone close to whoever normally replies from the team's inbox.

What this looks like in practice

Before

For the team. The coordinator clears the inbox in batches, usually twice a day. Each reply takes 10 to 20 minutes because it means switching between Gmail and Current RMS, and out-of-stock items often sit until someone has time to suggest an alternative.

For the customer. They submit the form, hear nothing for a day or two, and by the time a reply lands they have already messaged two or three other rentals. Silence on an out-of-stock item reads as "this shop doesn't want the business."

After

For the team. Replies go out in minutes, any time of day. The coordinator only gets pulled in when the customer writes back with a follow-up, not to write the first response. A film equipment rental team running this setup told us they cut average response time from over a day to under ten minutes, including on weekends, and stopped losing the "we had it booked already" conversations.

For the customer. They get a clear yes or no within minutes of submitting, with suggested dates or comparable items if the original request is out of stock. They can finalize their event plan the same evening instead of chasing three vendors for a week.

Who it fits

• Event and equipment rental shops using Current RMS, Rentman, or a similar system
• Print shops taking quote requests through forms and replying by email
• Catering and venue teams fielding intake forms for dates and headcount
• Any B2B team where the first reply out the door tends to win the deal