A lead calls, fills out a form or comes in from Angi. Someone on your team calls once, gets voicemail and moves on. Three days later the customer hires someone else, and nobody on your team knows whether they were ever really in the market.
Speed gets you into the conversation. Follow-up is what keeps you there when the customer is at work, in a meeting or comparing three quotes. This post gives you a 14-day cadence by channel, the reasoning behind it and the rules for when to stop. It builds on the response-time targets in how fast should a contractor respond to a lead.
A note on evidence. We looked for a published study on the best number of follow-up attempts for home services leads and did not find a trustworthy one. Numbers like "80% of sales need five follow-ups" circulate widely without a traceable source. The cadence below is our recommended structure, not a research result. Test it against your own booked jobs and adjust.
The principles behind the cadence
Front-load the attempts. The research that exists on lead response, such as the Lead Response Management work, points the same direction: contact odds fall fast in the first hours. Put most of your touches in days 0 to 3.
Change the channel, not just the day. A customer who ignores a call may answer a text. One who ignores a text may open an email at night. Mix them.
Give each touch a reason. "Just checking in" is the weakest message there is. Every touch should offer something: a time slot, a question, a price range, a photo of the problem, a seasonal reason.
Stop on the right signals. The customer books, says no, or opts out. When any of those happens, the sequence ends immediately. Nothing wrecks a reputation faster than a follow-up text after the customer already booked.
The cadence
This table assumes a new lead for a service call or an estimate request. Day 0 is the day the lead arrives.
| Day | Channel | Touch | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0, minute 1 | Text or email (automated) | Acknowledge, ask one question, offer a time | Get into the conversation |
| 0, within 10 minutes | Phone call | Live call by a person | The main attempt |
| 0, 30 to 60 minutes later | Text | "Tried to reach you, here are two times that work" | Offer a way to reply without a call |
| 1 | Phone call, morning | Second call, different time of day | Catch people who work early |
| 1 | Short note with what happens next, one clear price range or process step | Give a record they can forward | |
| 2 | Text | One question tied to the job, "Is the unit still running?" | Re-engage with a reason |
| 3 | Phone call, evening | Third call between 5 and 7 p.m. | Catch the after-work window |
| 5 | Text | Availability update, "We have an opening Thursday" | Create a concrete next step |
| 7 | A relevant, useful note: how the process works, what to expect, reviews | Reduce uncertainty | |
| 10 | Phone call | Final call attempt | Last direct try |
| 14 | Text or email | Close-the-loop message: "We will close your request unless you want us to keep it open" | Clean exit, leave the door open |
Eleven touches over 14 days sounds like a lot. Spread across three channels it is about one contact every day and a half, and the first five land inside the first 24 hours.
How it changes by lead type
Inbound call that went to voicemail
The customer already tried to reach you. Compress the front of the cadence: text within a minute, call back within 15 minutes, text again if no answer, call the next morning. If they have not responded by day 3, drop to the slower part of the table.
Web form
The form tells you the problem and, often, the timeline. Use it. A day 0 text that references what they wrote ("You mentioned the AC is blowing warm air") gets a reply more often than a generic template, and it tells them a person read it.
Angi, Thumbtack and other shared leads
The customer may be talking to other contractors the same afternoon. Run the first day at full intensity, with a call inside five minutes and a text right behind it. After day 3, slow down. Customers who have not replied after three days on a marketplace have often picked someone or stopped looking.
Estimates you already sent
This is a different cadence, built around price, financing and scheduling objections. It deserves its own plan, and we cover it in our unsold estimate follow-up guide.
Emergencies
Do not run this cadence. An emergency lead needs a person on the phone now, and either a booked dispatch or a clean handoff. If you cannot reach them after three calls in the first hour, send one text and stop.
Channel notes
Phone. A call is the strongest touch, and the one most shops under-use. Vary the time of day across attempts. Leave a short voicemail that gives your name, company, the reason you are calling and a number. One sentence on what you can offer.
Text. Texting is quick and often answered, but it comes with rules. Consent, quiet hours, opt-out handling and carrier registration all apply. Our TCPA texting guide for contractors summarizes the rules and the A2P 10DLC registration post covers the carrier step. This is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your process with counsel before you automate.
Email. Slowest, but it leaves a record and works for people who want to read before they commit. Keep each one short and give it one clear next step.
Rules for stopping
Write these down. Automations run on rules, and the rules need to be explicit.
- Booked. Any booking, from any channel, ends the sequence at once.
- Replied. A reply from the customer pauses the sequence and hands the lead to a person.
- Said no or "stop." Ends it, and logs an opt-out for text and email.
- Wrong number or out of area. Ends it. Fix the source if it keeps happening.
- Day 14 with no reply. Close the loop with a final message. Move the lead into a longer-term list for seasonal reminders if the customer has not opted out. See reactivating old customers.
How to measure whether it works
Track these by lead source for 60 days.
- Share of leads that got every planned touch. In most shops, this number is lower than owners expect.
- Touches at the point of booking. A job that books on touch 1 and one that books on touch 6 are both useful information.
- Booked jobs by day. If almost nothing books after day 7, shorten the plan. If a real share books on days 8 to 14, the long tail is paying for itself.
- Opt-out rate. A rising opt-out rate means the messages are too frequent or too generic.
Who does it
Written plans fail when they depend on a CSR remembering to call on day 5. Most of this cadence is repetitive, timed and rule-based, which is what software is good at. The human touches, the calls on days 0, 1, 3 and 10, belong to a person.
That split is the multi-touch follow-up component of our Booked-Jobs Recovery System: sequences wired into your field service software, with stop rules that read job status, so a booked customer never gets another message. If you want to see how we approach it, start with our AI lead generation and follow-up service.
Frequently asked questions
How many times should a contractor follow up with a lead?
There is no published number we trust. We suggest about 11 touches across 14 days, mixed across phone, text and email, with the first four inside the first 24 hours. Measure when your leads actually book and trim or extend from there.
How long should I keep following up on a home services lead?
Fourteen days of active follow-up, then a close-the-loop message. After that, move the lead to a low-frequency list for seasonal reminders unless they have opted out.
Is it okay to text leads who filled out a web form?
Texting rules depend on consent and how you collect it, and the details matter. Read our TCPA guide for what the rules say, and confirm your setup with counsel. This is general information, not legal advice.
What should a follow-up message say?
One reason to reply and one easy way to do it. "Is the unit running at all? I have 1 to 3 p.m. open tomorrow" works better than "just checking in."