Answer first. Win the work.
Every enquiry answered in seconds.
Every job booked in your diary.
More booked jobs within 90 days, or we keep knocking for free.
The leak
Why do trade enquiries go cold before you can reply?
Most home improvement enquiries go to whoever replies first, and most trade firms reply hours too late. You already pay for those enquiries. They come through your website, your ads, your Checkatrade profile, a word of mouth recommendation. Then you are up a ladder, or under a sink, or sat down for the evening. By the time you get back to them, they have booked the firm that replied first.
The enquiry goes cold
It lands at 7pm. You see it at lunch the next day. You call back, no answer. You try once more, then the job is gone. You never find out you lost it to a faster reply.
The enquiry gets answered
It lands at 7pm. The Doorman answers in seconds, handles the obvious questions, and books a survey into your diary before you have even put your phone down. You just turn up and quote.
Miss three jobs a month at four grand each and that is over a hundred and forty thousand pounds a year walking out the door. Leads you already paid to get. See the research behind this.
The difference
What changes when your business answers enquiries first?
The only difference between a booked survey and a cold lead is how fast and how often the enquiry gets answered. Same leads. Same jobs. Here is the week before, and the week after.
- 4hEnquiries answered when you finally sit down, if you remember at all
- 1One follow up at most, then the lead is forgotten
- 0After hours enquiries left until morning, long after they have chosen someone else
- ?No idea which leads were missed or what they were worth
- 0:05Every enquiry answered in seconds, on your brand and in your voice
- 6 to 8Persistent follow up until the survey is booked or it is a clear no
- 24/7Evenings and weekends covered, so the after hours rush is caught
- AllEvery enquiry tracked, with the lost ones brought back
This comparison reflects the response gap measured across the home improvement trade, where the first firm to reply wins about 78 percent of the time and a five minute reply makes a lead far more likely to convert than a thirty minute one. Your discovery call shows the numbers for your business specifically.
The Lost Lead calculator
See what slow replies are costing you.
A conservative estimate in ten seconds, built on how the trade actually behaves. Your discovery call goes deeper with your real numbers, but this gives you the shape of it.
How we work this out
This is a conservative estimate, not a quote. Here is the exact calculation:
Step 1 — the gap. We take 50% (the close rate AI appointment setters consistently achieve on warm inbound leads) and subtract your current conversion rate. If you convert 20% of enquiries today, the gap is 30%.
Step 2 — lost jobs per year. We multiply your monthly enquiries by that gap, then by 12. At 30 enquiries a month with a 30% gap, that is 30 x 0.30 x 12 = 108 jobs a year currently going to a competitor.
Step 3 — lost revenue. Lost jobs per year multiplied by your average job value gives the total revenue walking out the door annually.
Step 4 — the win-back. We take whichever is smaller: the lost jobs per year, or the jobs your team can actually absorb (your spare capacity multiplied by 12). This caps the win-back at what you can realistically deliver, not an inflated theoretical maximum. That figure is then multiplied by your job value to give the recoverable revenue.
The 50% benchmark is supported by published lead response research: the first firm to reply wins roughly half to three quarters of available work, responding within five minutes makes conversion far more likely than waiting thirty, close to a quarter of UK trade enquiries receive no reply at all, and most firms follow up only once when around six attempts is the proven sweet spot. Sources: MIT and InsideSales Lead Response Management study, Harvard Business Review analysis of 2,241 firms, Velocify follow up data, and AppointWise UK installer data. Your discovery call replaces every assumption here with your real numbers.
Talk to us
Still have questions?
Ask Tony anything about The Doorman, how it works, or whether it is right for your business. Or book a fifteen-minute discovery call and we will show you the number before you decide anything.