Speed to lead
The most expensive marketing problem in most service businesses is not the ad budget. It is the lead that came in at 2:40 on a Tuesday, hit voicemail, and called the next listing. Nearly a quarter of the companies in Harvard Business Review's audit never responded to a web lead at all, and the ones that replied within an hour were about seven times as likely to qualify it as the ones an hour slower.
Who this is for
A follow-up system fixes that without hiring anyone. Every lead, from every channel, lands in one list with its source. An acknowledgement goes out in seconds. A named person gets an alert and owns the reply. Anyone who goes quiet gets a short, human sequence instead of silence. It is the highest-return project on this site, and it usually takes two to three weeks.
- Miss calls during jobs, consults or dinner and find out about them from voicemail
- Have leads arriving by phone, form, text, Facebook and email with no single list
- Cannot say how many leads came in last month, or from where
- Have one person who handles leads, and nothing happens when they are off
- Lose quotes to silence rather than to a competitor's price
What's included
One list, every source
Calls, forms, texts, chat and social messages captured in one pipeline, each tagged with the channel and campaign that produced it.
Missed-call text back
A text within a minute of any missed call, from your number, with a question that starts the conversation while you finish the job.
Instant acknowledgement
Every form and message gets a real reply in seconds that sets an expectation, not an autoresponder that says nothing.
Alerts and owners
A named owner per shift gets the alert on their phone. If it is not touched in fifteen minutes, it escalates. Nothing waits for Monday.
Quiet-lead sequences
Three to five short messages over two weeks for quotes that stalled, written like a person, stopping the moment they reply.
The weekly number
Leads in, reply time, contact rate, booked, closed, by source. One line a week, so the system stays honest.
How it runs
- 01
Map
Where leads come from today, where each one goes, and where they leak. Usually the first surprise.
- 02
Capture
The pipeline and the tracked numbers, so every lead exists in one place with a source.
- 03
Reply
Text-back, acknowledgements, alerts and owners, tested with real test leads at odd hours.
- 04
Chase
Sequences for quiet leads, then the weekly number and a monthly check that it is all still firing.
Numbers to know
Only the figures an article on this site cites a source for. Your own numbers beat any of them, which is what the tools are for.
InsideSales.com's lead response research. The window is minutes, not hours.
Firms that contacted a web lead within an hour were about seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that waited an hour longer (Harvard Business Review).
Nearly a quarter of the companies in the Harvard Business Review audit never responded to a web lead. The system exists so you are never in that group.
What changes in 90 days
A follow-up system is a fixed-fee project: the map, the build, the testing and the handover, usually two to three weeks. The tools are ones you already pay for where possible, and you own every account. Ongoing support is optional. Pricing is discussed plainly on the first call.
What marketing help costs, and how to compare quotes- Every lead in one place with its source, within a week of starting
- A reply within minutes to every missed call and form, around the clock
- A contact rate and a reply time you can read every Monday
- Quotes that get chased by a system instead of forgotten by a person
Run your numbers
Free, no email, and every result has a link you can send.
Before you ask
The short versions. Anything else, put it in the message.
Whatever you already have, where it works: your phone system or a tracked-number service for missed-call text back, your CRM or a simple pipeline for the list, and your email and text platform for the sequences. Tools are chosen after the process is designed. Most systems run on a small monthly software bill and replace nothing you like.
Go deeper
Often paired with
Let's talk
Tell me what's going on with your marketing. I'll reply within a business day, and we'll find the constraint together on a 30-minute call. No pitch, no deck.