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3 Comments

How do you handle leads that come in after hours? (quick poll)

Running a quick poll for local service business owners (HVAC, plumbing, dental, real estate, etc.)

When a lead emails or texts after hours — what actually happens?

Genuinely curious how many people are losing jobs they never even knew about. Drop your answer below 👇

When a lead contacts you after hours, what happens?
  1. I reply when I see it (hours later)
  2. I miss it completely and lose the lead
  3. I have a VA or auto-reply set up
  4. I reply within minutes — always on
Vote
on July 6, 2026
  1. 1

    100% this. that's actually the scariest part — most local business owners i've talked to had no idea how many leads they were missing until we showed them the data. they assumed "no reply = not interested." but a huge chunk were just people who moved on to whoever called back first.

    that's the whole reason i built closereply — not just to reply fast, but to make the invisible visible. every lead gets logged, every reply tracked. owners are genuinely shocked when they see what was slipping through at 9pm on a tuesday.

  2. 1

    The interesting question isn't how quickly someone replies after hours.

    It's how many businesses have no idea they're losing opportunities because the missed conversations are invisible. You can't optimize a problem that never gets measured.

    1. 1

      yeah this is the thing nobody talks about. the missed calls, the unanswered texts — they just disappear. the owner assumes it was a slow week. never occurs to them that 6 people already hired someone else.
      i saw this firsthand with an hvac guy in texas. showed me his phone — 11 missed calls from one weekend. genuinely thought business was quiet. every single one had booked a competitor by monday.
      that's literally why i built closereply. not even about speed at first — just wanted owners to finally see what was happening. the dashboard alone changes how people think about their business.
      free trial at closereply.com if you want to check it out. no card, takes like 10 min.

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