How fast you need to reply to an enquiry

When someone needs a tradesperson, they rarely ask just one. They fill in two or three forms, ring a couple of numbers, and go with whoever gets back to them first with something sensible.

That isn't a survey result. It's how most of us shop for anything we need doing this week.

Speed beats polish

A short reply now beats a perfect reply tonight. By tonight they may well have heard from someone else, and a thoughtful answer from a firm that's already lost the job doesn't help anybody.

What a first reply has to do

It doesn't need to be long. It needs to do three jobs.

• Use their name and show you've read it. Not "Dear customer, thank you for your enquiry."
• Say what happens next, and when. A time, not "soon".
• Give them one easy thing to do, or one useful thing to know.

Something like this:

Three lines. Sarah knows she's been heard, when she'll hear more, and how to stop the water in the meantime. She's got far less reason to ring the next number.

Roughly how fast

There's no magic number, but the shape of it is simple.

• Within a few minutes: there's a good chance you're the first to reply.
• Within the hour: often still in with a chance.
• The same evening: they've probably spoken to someone else.
• The next day: they may well have booked.

These are rules of thumb, not statistics. The longer the gap, the more chance someone else has filled it, and urgent jobs shrink every one of those windows. A burst pipe won't wait an hour.

How to manage it from a roof

You can't reply within minutes with your hands in a boiler. So don't rely on your hands.

• An automatic first reply to every website enquiry, in your words, saying when you'll be in touch.
• A text back to anyone whose call you miss, so they know they've been heard.
• Set times to reply properly. A tea break, lunch, the end of the day. Say what they are.
• One inbox. Calls, texts, forms and messages in one place, so nothing sits waiting where you don't look.

Then follow up

Plenty of enquiries go quiet after the first reply, and quiet isn't always no. People get busy. A polite nudge a couple of days later wins back jobs that would otherwise just fade away.

What we do about it

Cobalt answers every call in your business's name and books callers into your diary. Website enquiries get a reply straight away, anyone whose call is missed gets a text back within seconds, and every new enquiry is followed up automatically for a week, so nobody has to remember to chase. All of it lands in one record you can see from your phone.

You can test the speed yourself by ringing 07401 200177, our own receptionist. The full list is on what we can do, and both plans are priced in public.