Quote requests: how to reply within 24 hours from a job site

By the Acteurly team · October 13, 2026 · 8 min read

In short

Customers don't need your price within 24 hours: they need a human reply the same day and a date for the next step. Aim for a personal acknowledgment at your next break, a qualifying call within 24 hours and a quote on the date you promised. Harvard Business Review found that trying to reach a lead within an hour made qualifying it nearly 7 times as likely as waiting an hour longer.

Sunday, 8:15 p.m.: the race starts before your quote

Sunday, 8:15 p.m. A request comes in through your website form: "Redo the back patio, about 20 ft by 14 ft, photos attached."

You see it Monday at noon on a job site and wait until you have time to price it properly. The quote goes out Wednesday night. On Thursday, the reply: "Thanks, we've already hired someone."

That customer simply followed the standard advice: Quebec's building authority, the Régie du bâtiment du Québec, tells homeowners to get quotes from at least three contractors, and the lead site SoumissionRenovation.ca shares each customer's number with up to four. Every request is a race, even when you can't see the other runners.

Our position: you win that race with the first human reply, not with the quote. Customers don't need your price within 24 hours; they need to know, that same day, that a real person read their request and when the next step is coming. Before you buy one more lead, measure how long the ones you already get are left waiting.

What the research actually measured

The most quoted source is a 2011 Harvard Business Review article. Of 2,241 U.S. companies, 37% answered an online enquiry within an hour, 24% took more than 24 hours and 23% never answered. In a second analysis (1.25 million leads, 42 companies), firms that tried to reach the customer within an hour were nearly 7 times as likely to qualify the lead (have a real conversation with the decision-maker) as firms that waited an hour longer, and more than 60 times as likely as firms that waited 24 hours or more.

The other famous number, "100 times more likely to reach a lead in 5 minutes than in 30," comes from a 2007 study by James Oldroyd and InsideSales.com: more than 15,000 leads, six companies, phone sales teams. Not a roofer on a roof. In 2009, InsideSales itself admitted it didn't know whether every enquiry deserves an instant response; price and proposal requests, it said, do.

Take the direction, not the multiplier: a quote request is a buying signal that cools by the hour. For a three-person crew, the realistic goal isn't five minutes. It's being the first credible human among the three contractors the customer contacted.

The three clocks of a quote request

Most advice watches one clock: how long the quote takes. There are three, and the customer really only feels the first.

The human acknowledgment. A message you wrote yourself, proving you read the request. Target: your next break, so under three hours during the day, and before 8 a.m. for a request that came in the night before.
The qualifying conversation. Ten minutes on the phone, or a few photos back and forth, to understand the project, budget and timeline. Target: 24 hours. This is when you give the date the quote will arrive.
The quote. It goes out on the date you promised: a few business days for a small job, a site visit on the calendar for a big one. Here the number that matters is the share of promises kept, not speed.

The classic mistake comes from good intentions: polishing the quote while the customer waits in silence. Your beautiful PDF on day five lands after the competitor who wrote on day one: "Got it, I'll call you tomorrow at 7:30." Customers don't leave because they have to wait. They leave because they're waiting with no news.

What to automate, what stays human

Automate the intake, not the relationship. "We'll get back to you as soon as possible" says nothing. Your auto-reply (form, email, Facebook Page) should say instead:

when a real person will get back to them, with one version for the workday and one for evenings and weekends;
what to send to speed things up: two or three photos, rough measurements, their town, the date they have in mind;
what you don't do, so requests outside your field drop out on their own;
what the photos are for. Quebec's private-sector privacy law, as amended by Law 25 asks businesses to collect only what they need and to say why (sections 5 and 8). For the details, check with a professional.

Write it in French first, then English: Quebec's Charter of the French language gives consumers the right to be informed and served in French. After that, reply in the customer's language.

Everything else stays human: the acknowledgment, the qualifying call, the price and the "no." Here is the two-minute message to send on your break, by text or email. It always picks up one specific detail from the request, the proof that a person read it.

Hi [first name], it's [your name] from [company]. Thanks for [the photos of your backyard]. I'm on a job until 4, so I'll call you at 4:30 for about ten minutes. If that doesn't work, just text me a better time.

Bonjour [prénom], ici [votre prénom], de [entreprise]. J'ai bien vu [vos photos de la cour arrière], merci. Je suis sur un chantier jusqu'à 16 h et je vous appelle à 16 h 30, pour une dizaine de minutes. Si l'heure ne vous convient pas, écrivez-moi celle qui vous arrange.

Be ready, too, for requests made by a machine. In May 2026, Google announced that in the U.S., for categories such as home repair, people could ask it to call businesses on their behalf. An agent like that wants a price and a date, not a PDF, so keep your price ranges and next availability within reach. Your Google Business Profile also lets you turn these calls off.

Between jobs: sorting requests on your phone

Every request should land in one place: your form forwarded by email and text, Facebook notifications turned on. Don't count on messaging in your Google Business Profile; Google shut it down on July 31, 2024. Then set three ten-minute windows a day, say 7 a.m., noon and 4 p.m.

The 2007 study (U.S. data, so treat it as a hint) found the best times to reach a lead were 4 to 6 p.m., and to qualify one, 8 to 9 a.m. or 4 to 5 p.m.: your off-site hours. At each window, sort by colour:

Green: your service, your area, a realistic timeline. Human acknowledgment now, call at the end of the day.
Yellow: information is missing. One text asking for photos and measurements.
Red: outside your area or services. A polite no in one minute, with a colleague's name if you can.

In peak season, stretch the third clock, never the first. In spring for renovation and landscaping, or in the run-up to Quebec's Moving Day (July 1) for cleaning and painting crews, state the wait in your acknowledgment: "We're booking site visits from May 12." If you close for Quebec's construction holiday (December 20, 2026 to January 2, 2027, then July 25 to August 7, 2027), your auto-reply gives the date you're back.

A worked example: 30 requests, two speeds

Take a three-person landscaping company in Lévis: 30 requests in May, average job of $4,500. It usually replies the next evening and has a real conversation with 60% of the people who asked; it quotes two out of three people it reaches and signs one quote in three. These rates are assumptions for the example.

Today: 30 × 60% = 18 people reached; 18 × 2/3 = 12 quotes; 12 × 1/3 = 4 jobs; 4 × $4,500 = $18,000.
With the three clocks, if only the reach rate rises to 80%: 30 × 80% = 24 people reached; 24 × 2/3 = 16 quotes; 16 × 1/3 ≈ 5.3 jobs; 16 × $4,500 ÷ 3 = $24,000.

The difference: $6,000 in one month, from the same requests and with no extra advertising. At today's rates, each request is worth $600 ($18,000 ÷ 30), so earning that $6,000 by buying leads would take 10 more requests a month, plus the calls and site visits that come with them.

Speed has limits. It won't rescue a badly calculated price, a poor reputation or a full calendar: booked eight weeks out, you'll get a waiting list, and it may be your prices that need a look. Public tenders, for their part, follow their own rules.

Where to start on Monday

Monday: for your last 20 requests, note when each arrived and when a human first replied. Work out the median delay (the middle value): one request forgotten for five days skews the average, not the median.
Tuesday: write your two auto-replies, workday and evening, in French then English.
Wednesday: route every channel to one place and pick your three windows.
Thursday: save your price ranges and next availability in your phone.
Friday: start a sheet with one row per request: received, source, first reply, reached, quote promised and sent, signed, amount.

Then track these four numbers every month.

Measure	How to calculate it	Starting benchmark
Median time to first reply	Middle value of all delays	Same half-day
Reach rate	Real conversations ÷ requests	Rising month over month
Promises kept	Quotes sent by the promised date ÷ quotes	9 out of 10
Close rate by response time	Jobs ÷ requests, in three groups: under 3 h, 3 to 24 h, over 24 h	Your own curve

At 30 requests a month, give it a full quarter before you read that last line. In time, it will show you what half a day of silence costs your business: a number more useful than any U.S. study.

Frequently asked questions

How long should it take to send a quote?

There's no standard turnaround: it depends on the size of the job and whether you need a site visit. What matters is giving the customer a date and meeting it. If you can see you'll be late, tell them before the date, not after: a delay you announce looks organized, a delay they discover looks like you forgot.

How do you follow up on a quote without being pushy?

Send a first follow-up two or three business days after the quote, through the channel the customer used, with a useful question instead of "Any news?" For example: "Would it help if I walked you through the difference between the two options?" A second follow-up a week later, then a last message that politely closes the file while leaving the door open, is enough in most cases.

Should you reply to a request you don't want?

Yes, and quickly. A clear no on the same day lets the customer move on and leaves them with the memory of a professional business, which can earn you a referral later. If you know a reliable company for that kind of work, pass on the name: it's a favour that costs you one minute.

Are quote requests from Facebook less serious?

Not necessarily. They're sometimes shorter, but the person is still waiting for an answer. Offer early to continue by phone or email so you can get photos and measurements, and log the source of every request: after a few months, your close rate by source will tell you whether a channel deserves more or less effort.