Speed to lead for contractorsan autoresponder is not a response.
Speed to lead is the time between a homeowner asking for a price and a real person from your company getting back to them. Counted from the moment the lead arrives, not from the moment somebody notices it.
- Five minutes
- Every lead
- Real people
- Written record
Most contractors are fast on a quiet Tuesday and slow on the day a crew is short, a job runs long, and the phone rings anyway. That is the day the work is worth the most. Speed to lead is not a discipline problem you can solve by trying harder on a busy week. It is a question of who is holding the phone when you cannot.
The standard we hold
We answer new leads within five minutes — a standard we hold on every lead, measured and held consistently — with a 60-minute maximum response.
That is a commitment, not an average. It is what we sign up to on every lead we handle, and it is published here so you can hold us to it.
What is speed to lead for contractors?
Speed to lead for contractors is the time between a homeowner asking for a price and a real person from the company getting back to them. It is counted from the moment the lead arrives, not from the moment someone notices it, and not from the moment an automatic email goes out.
What is the five-minute rule for leads?
The five-minute rule is the working standard that a new lead should reach a real person within five minutes of arriving. A homeowner asking for a price rarely asks only one contractor, and the one who gets back first is usually the one who books the estimate. Past that window the job is not gone, but somebody else is already in the conversation.
Does an automatic text message count as answering a lead?
No. An autoresponder confirms that a form arrived. It does not ask what the homeowner is trying to do, it does not work out whether the job is a fit, and it cannot book anything. A homeowner who gets an instant thanks-we-got-your-request has not been contacted by anyone yet. Speed to lead is measured to a real conversation, not to a receipt.
Why does speed to lead break on the busiest days?
Because the same people answer the phone and run the work. When a crew is short or a job runs long, the phone is the thing that gives. So it fails hardest in the weeks with the most work in the ground, which are the weeks a missed call costs the most. It is a staffing problem before it is an effort problem.
Can software fix speed to lead?
Software routes a lead in a second and sends an instant text. It cannot ask the second question, handle the objection, or put an appointment on a calendar the homeowner will actually keep. Every tool still needs somebody to pick up. The fix is a person whose only job is the customer, working on a system that never loses the thread.
What does holding a five-minute response actually take?
Coverage across the whole window leads arrive in, which includes evenings and weekends. One place every lead lands, so nobody is checking three inboxes. Somebody whose only job is the customer, so the phone is never what gives on a busy day. And a written record after every call, so the next person picks up where the last one stopped.
Does answering faster actually win more work?
Only if somebody works the lead after the first call. Across our whole client book, of the sales appointments we booked, the share that became signed contracts grew from 15.8% to 20.5% counting every appointment, and from 16.8% to 25.1% counting only the ones that held. We publish both bases because they trade against each other, and the same signed contracts sit underneath both.
What it takes to hold it
None of this is a feature you switch on. It is a seat somebody has to sit in.
- Every lead lands in one place, not three inboxes.
- A real person picks up, not an autoresponder.
- Coverage across evenings and weekends, when leads actually arrive.
- Somebody whose only job is the customer, so the phone is never what gives.
- A written record after every call, so the thread never restarts.
Answering fast is the first link in a longer chain. The rest of it — the follow-up, the quote chase, the confirmation, the deposit, the final payment — is set out in full on our contractor customer service page, and the line between your work and ours is drawn on who does what. What it costs is on our pricing page.
What owning the customer side produces
We are not showing you our best client. We are showing you all of them. Three contractors run on this scope today, all published by name: Walnut Hollow Decks & Outdoor Living (West Virginia), The Custom Shower Company (Mississippi), Hook Roofing & Construction (Louisiana).
Across the three, revenue per month is up 151% since we took over the customer side, from $36,744 to $92,153, measured against each contractor's own records for the twelve months before we started. Sixty-two signed contracts and $817,457 in sold work in the trailing 90 days. Every contractor is up. The strongest is 256%. The weakest is 77%, and it is on this page on purpose.
Three named contractors. Nothing here generalises beyond them. Individual results vary.
The longer version of how the customer side gets run, and what it replaces, is in Done-For-You Inside Sales for Contractors.
