Why it matters: Find genuine enquiries that still need attention and decide how to handle them.
Check calls and written enquiries separately.
For calls, check whether someone answered and what happened to unanswered calls. Did the person leave a message, receive a callback or contact you another way? A missed call is not automatically a lost customer.
For forms and emails, find the first useful reply. An automatic confirmation says the message arrived. It does not answer whether you can help, what you need to quote or what happens next.
A simple example
What if more of the enquiries you already have got a reply?
Imagine 200 enquiries. If 160 receive a useful reply, 40 have no useful reply recorded. Before assuming those people were ignored, check whether someone answered through another channel.
If the business could raise useful replies from 160 to 190, that would mean 30 more enquiries receiving an answer. Whether that creates extra work depends on what people wanted, whether you could help and whether they went on to buy.
- More enquiries receiving a useful reply in this scenario
- 30
Illustrative example. Assumes 30 more useful replies; sales outcomes are not modelled.
When are people left waiting?
Look at when enquiries arrive and when you can respond. A busy call period may overlap with work that takes you away from the phone. Forms may arrive when your business is closed. Check the pattern before changing who answers or adding another tool.
Keep unanswered requests in the picture. An average based only on the people who received replies can hide those still waiting. Check whether the reply happened through another channel before calling it missing.
- Check call times, unanswered calls and callbacks.
- For forms and emails, check the first useful reply and who is responsible.
- Tell the customer what happens next when a full answer needs more time.
How Gibson finds the gaps.
We review the available call records alongside form and email enquiries, keeping their response measures separate. Where supported, enquiries link to the customer or booking system so you can see the next action and eventual job.
Then we explain where a handover, reply or record is missing and agree what to change. That might mean clearer responsibility, different call handling or a better connection between systems. Any system changes are checked and scoped first.
Customer contact is only included when agreed. The aim is a useful next step for genuine enquiries, not repeated messages to everyone.
What you can do next
Pick a few recent enquiries.
Can you find the enquiry, a useful answer and what happened next? Start with the missing links. Gibson can help identify the gaps and agree the actions with you.
See the calculations, sources and checks
The evidence
What the published sources say.
XANT’s 2021 report examined 5.7 million marketing leads and 55 million sales activities across more than 400 companies. It reported eightfold higher conversation rates for attempts within five minutes than after six minutes or more.
This is vendor observational research about conversations, not an experiment proving extra sales. It does not establish an Australian response-time target or the benefit your business will achieve. Use it as a reason to measure your own response process.
XANT: State of Sales Development 2021, PDF pages 7 to 8 ↗The measures that make this useful.
- Share of enquiries given a useful reply
- Enquiries with a useful response ÷ genuine enquiries received
Shows how many enquiries received a useful answer. An automatic confirmation is tracked separately.
- Response time
- Time from actual receipt to first useful response
Show the middle response time and how long the slowest replies took. Also show who is still waiting and for how long.
- Enquiries with a clear next step
- Open suitable enquiries with an owner and next action ÷ open suitable enquiries
Checks whether a reply led somewhere useful rather than simply closing an inbox task.
- Paid-job rate
- Paid jobs confirmed in the records ÷ genuine enquiries in the same review group
Shows the business outcome. Give newer enquiries the same follow-up period before comparing.
Worked value example
What could better response coverage be worth?
Illustrative calculation. All inputs assumed. AUD; amounts exclude GST. Not a customer result, forecast or Gibson price.
Assume 200 genuine enquiries in a month. Useful-response coverage moves from 80% to 95%. That means 30 more enquiries receive a useful response. This is a planning scenario, not a measured improvement or a promised target.
- More enquiries receiving a useful response
- 30
- Modelled additional paid revenue
- $7,200
- Starting number with useful responses
- 160
- Scenario number with useful responses
- 190
- Assumed additional suitable enquiries
- 24
- Modelled additional paid jobs
- 6
- Modelled gross contribution before extra costs
- $2,880
30 extra responses × 80% suitable × 25% becoming additional paid jobs × A$1,200 = A$7,200 modelled additional paid revenue.
The 15 percentage-point coverage change creates 30 more useful responses. Under the stated assumptions, six additional paid jobs produce A$2,880 gross contribution before the extra response effort, system costs and overheads.
Show every assumed input
- Genuine enquiries
- 200
- Starting useful-response coverage
- 80%
- Scenario useful-response coverage
- 95%
- Assumed suitability among extra responses
- 80%
- Assumed additional paid-job rate among those suitable enquiries
- 25%
- Assumed paid value per additional job
- $1,200
- Assumed gross margin
- 40%
What would change the result? This assumes those six jobs are additional. If three are additional, gross contribution is A$1,440; if none are additional, it is A$0. Faster replies alone do not establish causation. Compare work mix and follow-up periods, and use a comparable group or staged rollout where practical.
From our Blind Marketing build
A call log cannot tell you whether an email was answered.
Our first walkthrough leaned too heavily on calls. We changed it to analyse calls and online enquiries separately, then combine their outcomes by marketing source. That matters because an answered call and a delivered form are different events. For online enquiries, the useful check is whether a person replied and moved the request forward. For calls, it is whether the customer got through or received an appropriate callback.
What to take from it: Ask the team to show an enquiry received, the first useful response and the next action. If a link is missing, investigate that handover before assuming the customer was ignored.
This describes our prototype review and the method we built. The walkthrough uses mock data; it does not prove a faster response or extra sales.
Show who is still waiting, not just how quickly others were answered.
Start the clock when the enquiry arrived, not when someone added it to the CRM. If it arrived while the business was closed, keep that clear.
- Show the middle reply time: half of recorded reply times were shorter and half were longer. Also show how long the slower replies took.
- List how many enquiries still have no answer recorded and how long they have been waiting. Check whether someone replied another way.
- Keep the wait for a quote, the wait for the customer to agree and the wait for payment separate. Each may need a different change.