How Fast Should You Reply To A New Enquiry

Inside the hour during business hours, and the same day at the very latest. A new enquiry is a person with a problem who has just decided to do something about it, and that intent fades fast.

Speed is the cheapest conversion lift a service business has. It costs nothing in ad spend, and it changes how many of the leads you already pay for become real conversations.

Why the first hour matters

A buyer who fills in one form often fills in two or three. They are shopping around. The first business that calls back with a useful answer, even a short one, sets the frame for every conversation that follows it.

Reply in ten minutes and you catch them while the problem is still open in their head. Reply in two days and they have moved on, booked somebody else, or forgotten what they asked.

What a good first reply looks like

Fast and useless loses to slow and useful. The reply has to move the conversation forward.

A call first, if they gave a phone number. A voice beats a text for anything worth more than a few thousand dollars.

A text straight after, if they miss the call, saying who you are and when you will try again.

An email that answers the question they asked, with one clear next step rather than a brochure.

Use their name, refer to what they actually wrote, and suggest a time. "Thanks for your enquiry, we will be in touch" is a reply that says nothing at all.

Who owns the first response

This is where speed is won or lost. If enquiries land in a shared inbox that three people check when they have a minute, nobody owns them and they sit there.

Name one person. Give them the alert on their phone, a short script and the authority to book a call, and set a backup for when they are on leave. Then check the response time every week, the same way you check revenue.

After hours and weekends

Buyers enquire at night, because that is when business owners finally get to their own admin. A form at 9pm on a Sunday is normal.

An automatic reply that confirms you got it, says when a person will call, and offers a booking link covers the gap honestly. AI can draft a useful first answer to the common questions, but a real person should follow up first thing the next business day.

Fix the form before the follow up

Speed only matters if the enquiry arrives. A form with nine fields loses people before they press send, which is the problem covered in why your enquiry form is too long.

Ask for a name, a phone number, an email and one question about the job. Everything else can wait for the call.

The follow up after the first reply

Plenty of enquiries do not answer the first time. That is not a no.

Call twice, text once and email once across the first week, then move them into a slower sequence that checks in every few weeks. The full structure is in the follow up sequence worth building.

What it does to your numbers

Every lead you pay for has a cost. If half of them go cold because nobody called back in time, your real cost per lead is double what the ad platform reports. That maths is set out in how to set a realistic cost per lead.

Measure two things: time from enquiry to first contact, and the share of enquiries that become a booked call. When the first number drops, the second one usually climbs.

What this unlocks: more sales from the same ad spend, because the leads you already pay for get answered while they still want to talk.