Free lead response audit
Your next enquiry is already sitting there.
We send one enquiry, written and approved by you, to the address your customers actually use. Then we time the first reply and email you the number.
Inbox
1 unread
Sarah Whitfield
just now
Are you taking on work at the moment?
Hello, I found you online and wanted to ask whether…
Screwfix
11:02
Your March statement is ready
Trade Weekly
09:30
Five ways to price a job properly
Sarah is still waiting. Her clock started when this page loaded. Two ways it usually ends:
Answered within the hour, where 37% of businesses landed.
Answered 42 hours later, the average among those who replied at all. Nearly a quarter never did.
Run the check
Three short steps. Nothing is sent until you confirm by email, and you write the enquiry yourself.
Step 1 of 3
About a minute
What actually happens
An email response audit, run start to finish for you. Five steps over about a week, three emails in total, and you decide whether there is ever a fourth.
Now
You write the enquiry
You choose what we send. Start from a template and edit it until it reads like the enquiries you actually get, because that is what makes the number mean something.
Straight after
You confirm it
We email the address you want checked, showing the exact message we will send. Nothing else happens until someone clicks the link in that email, which is also how we know the address is yours.
A few hours later
We send it, once
That one enquiry arrives. One. Whoever handles it treats it exactly as they would any other, which is the whole point.
Across the next week
We measure the reply
How long the first reply took, whether anyone followed up, and whether it arrived at all. If nothing comes back in a week, that is the finding.
About a week later
You get the numbers
A short email with the result and what it means in practice. No call required, no obligation, and we stop there unless you reply.
One thing we will not pretend about
The enquiry comes from Max at max@loadoff.uk: a real person, at our real domain, and it will be sitting in your inbox afterwards for you to check. We do not invent a customer or hide who sent it. What we also do not do is put "this is a test" in the subject line, because an enquiry everyone knows is a drill gets answered like a drill, and then the number is worthless to you. You approve the exact wording before it goes, and you can stop the whole thing from any email we send.
What the report tells you
One email, about a week after you confirm. No dashboard, no login, no call booked in to walk you through the findings. The figures below are an example rather than a real customer's.
Your lead response audit (example)
- First reply
- 17.2 hours
- Enquiry sent
- Tue 20:20
- Reply received
- Wed 13:32
- Follow-ups after that
- None
- Arrived at all?
- Yes
Plus a paragraph on what it means in practice. The report states on its face that this is one measurement of one enquiry rather than an average, because a single sample presented as a benchmark would mislead you.
Where the numbers come from
Two studies, cited because they measured replies rather than surveying opinions about them. The larger one did at scale what this page offers to do for you: it sent each of 2,241 companies a test enquiry and timed what came back.
How long the 2,241 first replies took:
37% replied within the hour
16% replied later the same day
24% took more than 24 hours
23% never replied at all
- 37% replied within the hour
- 16% replied later the same day
- 24% took more than 24 hours
- 23% never replied at all
One enquiry tells you which of the four blocks your business is. Run the check: it is the same test, pointed at your business, and it costs nothing.
- 7×
more likely to qualify a lead when contact is made within an hour, against trying just an hour later.
2,241 US companies audited with a web-generated test lead. Harvard Business Review, 2011
- 60×
more likely to qualify than a company that waits 24 hours or longer.
Same audit. The drop is steepest in the first hour, then it flattens. Harvard Business Review, 2011
- 23%
of the companies audited never replied to the enquiry at all.
A further 24% took more than 24 hours. The average, among those that did reply, was 42 hours. Harvard Business Review, 2011
- 6×
drop in the odds of qualifying a lead across the first hour alone, measured on real call data.
Three years of data, six companies, 15,000+ leads, 100,000+ call attempts. MIT Sloan / InsideSales, 2007
Both studies looked at B2B web leads worked by phone, so the multipliers will not transfer cleanly to a plumbing round or a physio practice. What transfers is the shape: almost all the loss happens in the first hour, and no business finds out where it sits on that curve by estimating. We go through what the research does and does not show, and what a realistic target looks like, in how fast you should reply to an enquiry.
Reasonable questions
What is a lead response audit?
It is a measurement of how long your business takes to reply to a new enquiry, sometimes called an email response audit. One realistic enquiry is sent to the address customers actually write to, the first reply is timed, and the result is written up. It is the same idea as email mystery shopping, which UK agencies sell as a paid service. This version is free, measures one thing rather than thirty, and needs no call.
What is a good lead response time for a small business?
Within an hour of the enquiry arriving. The Harvard Business Review audit found that companies replying inside the hour were seven times more likely to qualify the lead than those that waited even one hour more, and that the average across companies that replied at all was 42 hours. Reply the same day and you are ahead of most. Reply within the hour and you are ahead of nearly everyone, including the competitors your customer emailed at the same time.
How do I test how fast my business replies to enquiries?
Send one realistic enquiry to your own enquiry address, the way a customer would, and time the first reply. Asking your team gives you the answer they think you want, and checking the sent folder only shows the enquiries somebody noticed. This audit runs that test for you: you write the message, we send it once, and the timing arrives in writing about a week later.
Is this free?
Yes, and there is no call to sit through to get the result. It is sent to you by email whether or not you ever speak to us.
Will my team know it is a test?
It comes from Max at max@loadoff.uk, a real person at a real address rather than an anonymous or invented sender. Anyone who checks can see it is us, and you can reply to that address any time. We do not spoof customers or hide where the enquiry came from; what we do not do is announce it in the subject line, because an enquiry everyone knows is a test measures nothing.
Can I choose what the enquiry says?
Yes, you write it. Pick one of the templates as a starting point and edit it so it reads like the enquiries you actually receive, because a message that looks nothing like your real work gets handled nothing like your real work. Links are stripped before sending, and the confirmation email shows you the exact final wording before anything goes out.
Can I audit an address that is not mine?
No. The confirmation email goes to the address being checked, and nothing runs until someone clicks the link in it. There is no way to point this at a competitor.
How much email will I get?
Three, unless you ask for more: the confirmation, the single test enquiry, and the report. The report tells you it is the last one. There is an optional tick-box on the form if you also want occasional follow-up tips. It is unticked by default, refusing it changes nothing about your results, and you can unsubscribe from any email we send.
What if we reply quickly already?
Then you will have that in writing, which is worth knowing. The more useful question the report raises is whether it holds at 7pm on a Friday and in the weeks you are flat out, because those are the enquiries that go elsewhere.
What do you do with the data?
We keep the business name, the address checked and the timings, and we delete the record after 90 days. We store only the opening line of your reply, as evidence that the measurement is real. You can stop the check and have the record removed at any point using the link in any of the emails.
How is this different from email mystery shopping?
It is the same method, narrowed to one question. A mystery shopping agency will score tone, spelling, compliance and completeness across dozens of interactions, and charge accordingly. This measures how long the first reply took, on one enquiry, and costs nothing. If you need the full picture, hire an agency. If you want to know whether speed is your problem before spending anything, start here.
How long does it take to get the result?
About a week. The enquiry goes out a few hours after you confirm, and the report follows once there has been enough time for a slow reply to still count. Rushing it would only measure the fast half.
Do I need to install anything or connect my inbox?
No. There is nothing to install, no tracking pixel, no access to your mailbox and no software to connect. We send an email and time the reply, which is exactly what a real customer does.
Does this work for phone or web-form enquiries too?
This measures email, including anything your web form forwards to an inbox, which for most small businesses is where enquiries land. Phone is a different measurement and we do not fake calls.
Would rather just talk it through?
Book 15 minutes