How fast should a home service business respond to a new lead?
Within an hour, and faster if you can.
A Harvard Business Review study of 1.25 million sales leads found that companies who contacted a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to have a real conversation with the decision maker as companies who waited just one more hour. Compared with companies that waited a day or longer, they were more than 60 times as likely.
Most businesses are nowhere close. In a separate HBR audit of 2,241 US companies, the average first response took 42 hours. 23% never responded at all.
I see the same thing from the other side. I contact home service businesses by phone, and at least 40% never call back. If I can’t get through, a homeowner trying to book a job probably can’t either.
What a slow reply tells people about you
Before anyone reads what you wrote, they notice when you wrote it. A fast reply says you’re organized and paying attention. A reply two days later says you’re stretched thin, even if the message itself is great.
Picture a homeowner whose AC quits on a Friday evening. They fill out three contact forms. One company answers in ten minutes. The other two reply Monday morning, and by then the job is booked.
None of those businesses did anything wrong. Nobody was at a desk.
Where follow-up falls apart
It’s rarely one big mistake. It’s four small gaps:
- After-hours leads wait. Requests come in all night and all weekend. Your office doesn’t.
- Your techs can’t answer the phone. Someone on a roof or under a house isn’t picking up, and the lead moves on.
- “I’ll call them back” never happens. The callback loses to the next job on the schedule.
- You can’t tell what’s working. Without tracking, you don’t know which follow-up closed the job and which one just landed at the right time.
What to automate and what to keep
Automate the parts that need someone available the second a lead arrives: an instant reply, answering calls and texts after hours, routing the lead to the right person, and follow-ups that go out whether or not anyone’s at a desk. That’s what we build at Automate Shift.
Keep the judgment calls human. You decide which leads get a call today and what to say when you pick up.
Find out where your leads leak
Our free gap report shows where leads slip between the first inquiry and a booked job, and what each gap is likely costing you.
FAQ
What is a good lead response time?
Under an hour at minimum. The 1.25 million lead study found the odds of reaching the decision maker drop sharply after the first hour.
Does automated follow-up feel impersonal?
Not when the first reply is specific and a real person takes over the conversation. The automation handles speed. You handle the relationship.
What if I only get a few leads a week?
Then each one matters more. With few leads, one missed reply is a bigger share of your month.
Sources
- Oldroyd, J., McElheran, K., & Elkington, D. “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads.” Harvard Business Review, March 2011. BYU archive record.