How fast should contractors respond to a new lead?

Try to reach a new lead within five minutes, and treat 30 minutes as the outer limit. On Thumbtack in 2025, pros who reply to a lead within 30 minutes are 25% more likely to get hired than pros who take three hours. Text the homeowner in the first minute, in your company's name, then call, and keep trying for a few days until you reach them.

Picture a homeowner whose AC quits on a July morning. On his lunch break, he fills out quote forms for three companies. The first company to call him gets to send a tech. The other two call back that evening. By then, the first company's tech has already been out.

If you think your office calls back the same day, time it. The test at the end of this post takes one helper and two days.

How fast do you need to call back a new lead?

Call a new lead within five minutes, and treat 30 minutes as the outer limit. The study quoted most on this, by InsideSales.com and an MIT researcher in 2007, found that the odds of a web lead moving ahead in the sales process were 21 times greater when it was called within 5 minutes than at 30.

Two companies that send homeowners to contractors every day point the same way.

Angi also tells its pros that most closed leads go to the first pro who reaches the homeowner. Here is how fast to move on each kind of lead.

Why do a few minutes cost you jobs?

A few minutes cost a contractor jobs because homeowners ask more than one company, and the first company to reach them gets the first chance to book. With a lead from a lead seller, you know the same request went to other companies. One seller's own site says its shared leads go to two to four contractors.

Bath and window companies that buy shared leads from lead sellers live with this every day. A shared lead goes bad fastest for the company that calls third.

Most offices are slower than they think. In a 2026 survey of 1,000 residential contractors for ServiceTitan, more than half said they reply to new leads within the first hour. By their own count, the rest take longer than an hour. When reply times are measured, they look worse. In Hatch's 2024 data on 1,071 HVAC companies using its texting service, 88% took more than five minutes to answer a homeowner who had texted back. The most common wait was a full day.

Homeowners notice. In a 2026 Jobber survey of 800 recent home buyers, 9% never got a response at all from a company they tried to hire, and 15% had to follow up again and again.

Google keeps score too. If you run Local Services Ads, Google ranks them partly on your responsiveness to customer inquiries. Its help page says missed calls may count against you, and it lists average response time as part of your profile's quality.

What should you text a new lead in the first minute?

The first text to a new lead should give your company name, the job they asked about, and when you'll call, in a few short lines. Send it in the first minute. Most people don't pick up calls from numbers they don't know, and the text tells them who is about to call.

In a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, 8 in 10 Americans said they generally don't answer when an unknown number calls. When your call comes, the homeowner knows the number.

Keep it short. Hatch looked at 132,188 HVAC follow-up campaigns of texts and emails over six months. The one that got the most replies opened with a text of 241 characters. The one that got the fewest sent a single message of 634 characters.

Text in the first minute. Call in the first five.

Here are three texts to start with. Each one names your company and the job, and says when you'll call.

Hi, this is [your name] at [company]. Sorry we missed your call just now. What can we help you with? I'll call you back in 5 minutes, or just text me here if that's easier.

Hi [first name], this is [your name] from [company]. We got your request about your [job, like "AC not cooling"]. I'm going to call you from this number in the next few minutes. If now's a bad time, text me a better one.

Hi [first name], it's [your name] with [company]. You asked about [job] on [site name], and we'd be glad to help. I'll call you in a couple of minutes from this number. Is that OK?

Text only people who called you or gave you their number for a quote, and only about the job they asked about. Stop the moment someone asks you to.

Should you call, text, or both, and in what order?

Text a new lead in the first minute and call within five minutes: you need both, in that order. If nobody answers, keep trying with calls and texts for about five days. Angi says a second call raises your chance of reaching the homeowner by 45%.

Those extra tries pay. In Hatch's HVAC data, the campaign that got the most replies sent 7 messages over 5 days, texts and emails. The one that got the fewest sent one message.

Here are the words for each try.

Hi, is this [first name]? This is [your name] with [company]. You just asked us about your [job], so I wanted to catch you while you're near the phone. Do you have two minutes? Great. Tell me what's going on with the [job].

Hi [first name], it's [your name] at [company], calling about the [job] you asked us about. I'm sending you a text right now so you have my number. Call or text me back at [number] whenever you're free, and we'll get you on the schedule.

Hi [first name], [your name] at [company] again. Still want help with your [job]? I can have someone out [day] at [time] or [day] at [time]. Which works better?

Hi [first name], I don't want to keep bugging you. If you already found someone for your [job], no problem, just reply "done" and I'll close it out. If not, I'm here when you're ready.

Once the homeowner picks up, the job changes from reaching them to booking the visit. For that, see what your office says once the homeowner picks up and the words that book the appointment.

What about calls that come in after hours or while everyone is on a job?

When a lead comes in after hours, an emergency like no heat or water coming in gets a call back within minutes from whoever is on call. Everything else gets a text that night and the first call of the morning. While everyone is on a job, a named backup sends the text and makes the call.

Plenty of requests come in when nobody is at a desk. Invoca's 2026 report, drawn from more than 70 million calls, says home services requests often come in as emergencies, at night or on weekends. Overall, only 52% of callers to home service businesses speak with a person. Google's Local Services Ads page makes the same point about nights and weekends, when you can't answer the phone.

For no-heat and no-cooling calls, burst pipes and leaks, a person should call back that night. The same goes for roofers in storm weeks. Bath, window and door companies can wait for the morning, as long as the text went out the same evening.

Hi [first name], thanks for reaching out to [company] about your [job]. Our office opens at [time] and [your name] will call you first thing. If it can't wait (no heat, no cooling, water coming in), call [on-call number] and our on-call tech will call you right back.

Who on your team should own the first call?

Give the first call on every new lead to one named person for each part of the day, with a named backup. Write down the target too: first contact within five minutes while you're open. When new leads belong to "whoever sees it", each person assumes someone else called.

You want your techs and crews focused on the work in front of them. Good. Then make the first call an office job, with a name on it, so nobody on a roof or under a sink has to pick up.

The weekly check takes a few minutes. Pick ten leads from last week. For each one, compare the time it came in with the times of the first text and the first call, and count the tries. If those times creep up, you'll catch it in a week instead of a season.

When someone runs fast replies to every lead for you, you see these times every week without asking for them.

How can you test your own response time this week?

To test your own response time, have someone your office doesn't know ask for a quote on your website, like a homeowner would. Over two days, they also call your main number at lunch and send one more request after 6 p.m. They write down the time of every text and call that follows.

It costs a favor and two days, and the number you get is your own.

Then hold what you got up against this scorecard.

The last row trips up a lot of offices. Invoca's 2026 report found that 55% of home services businesses don't ask callers to book or buy.

Our free growth audit runs this same test for you, and we walk you through what we found on a short call in the next 2 to 3 business days.