How fast do you have to reply to a web enquiry?
Fast enough that the enquirer has not already contacted someone else — which in practice means minutes, not the next working day.
What the complaints actually say
We read the one- to three-star reviews of 64 US plumbing and HVAC firms and coded what each complaint was about. Almost half of those firms had at least one review about a call or an enquiry nobody answered, and 44% of all their negative reviews were about responsiveness or booking rather than the quality of the work.
That second number is the one worth sitting with. These are not businesses with a workmanship problem. They are businesses losing reputation at the front door.
The trade forums have had the same thread running for years — anyone else losing jobs to missed calls — and the usual answer offered is an answering service. What has changed is that most enquiries now arrive in writing, where speed to lead costs nothing but attention.
Why the first reply is the one that counts
An enquiry that arrives in writing is almost always one of several. The person has a tab open on three suppliers. The first useful answer wins, and "useful" does not mean a price — it means somebody acknowledged the thing they asked and told them what happens next.
That is a job an assistant can do perfectly at 11pm and a human cannot do at all.
What we actually promise
An answer in seconds to anything your own pages cover, a clear handoff for anything they do not, and the enquiry in your inbox either way with the answer attached.
It never quotes a price. It books the estimate and you give the figure — enforced in our code, not asked for in a prompt.
Try it rather than take our word for it
Paste your own web address. You get a working assistant trained on your own pages in about two minutes, free, and you can ask it the awkward questions yourself.
We read the public pages of the address you give us, we obey your robots.txt, and we email you the link. Three a day per visitor. No card, and we do not add you to a mailing list.