The first hour after an enquiry

An enquiry is not a lead, it is a race you did not know had started. The customer has a problem, an evening free and a phone in their hand. The business that replies first is not necessarily the one that gets the job — but it is nearly always the one that gets to quote, and you cannot win work you were never asked to price.

Reply before you can help

The instinct is to wait until you can answer properly: until you have looked at the address, checked the diary, worked out a price. That wait is where enquiries are lost. The first reply does not have to contain a price. It has to contain a person.

"Thanks — got your message about the patio. I am on a job until four, I will look at the photos this evening and come back with a price tonight. Anything urgent, ring me on this number."

Sixteen seconds, sent from a van at lunchtime, and the race is over. The customer now has one business that has spoken to them and two that have not. When the other quotes arrive tomorrow, they are arriving into a decision you are already part of.

Ask for the three things that decide the price

Most quoting delays come from missing detail, and most missing detail is the same three things. Ask for them in the first reply and you will often skip the site visit entirely.

• Photos. Two or three, taken back far enough to show the whole of it. They answer questions about size, access and condition all at once.
• The address. Not for the map — for the travel, the parking, the water and the fact that you may already be on that street on a Tuesday.
• When they want it done. "Before my daughter's wedding on the 12th" and "sometime this year" are two different jobs, and only one of them is urgent for you too.

If your website form asks for those three things, most of this happens without you sending anything. A form with a single "message" box is a form that generates phone calls.

Decide quickly what you are not going to do

Not every enquiry deserves an hour. Being fast is only worth it if you are fast about the right ones, and a polite no on the day is worth more to both sides than a quote you hope nobody accepts.

• Too far for the money, with nothing else near it — say so, and offer a name if you have one.
• Work you do not do — say what you do do, in one line. People remember the business that pointed them somewhere sensible.
• Price-only, with three quotes already in hand and a budget below your floor — quote your number plainly and move on.

Saying no is fast, free, and keeps your quote list short enough to actually be followed up.

Write it down where you will see it again

An enquiry that lives in a text message thread is an enquiry that dies there. Between a builder's WhatsApp, the website form, a Facebook message and a voicemail, the failure is almost never "we did not want the job" — it is "nobody knew that one was still waiting".

Whatever you use, everything that comes in should end up in one list, with a name, an address, what they want and the date it arrived. One place. Then a busy Tuesday costs you a delay rather than a customer.