How Should Contractors Follow Up With Leads?

Quick answer: Contact every new lead within five minutes by phone and text. If they don’t answer, follow a fixed cadence: six to eight touches across the first 14 days, alternating call, text, and email, then a monthly check-in after that. Most contractors quit after two attempts, which is why most of the leads they paid for never get booked.

There are two separate follow-up problems, and contractors confuse them.

The first is speed — how fast you touch a brand-new lead. That one is settled: faster wins, five minutes is the target, and it’s covered in detail in speed to lead for contractors.

The second is persistence — what happens on attempts two through eight, when they didn’t pick up. This is where the actual money is, and almost nobody runs a system for it.

Why do most contractor leads never get contacted properly?

Ask a contractor how they follow up and you’ll usually hear a version of this: “We call them. If we can’t get them, we call again the next day. If they still don’t answer, they probably weren’t serious.”

Two things are wrong with that.

One: not answering isn’t disinterest. A homeowner filled out your form at 8:40pm because their AC was making a noise. They’re at work at 10am when you call from a number they don’t recognize. They don’t answer, because nobody answers unknown numbers anymore. That’s not a cold lead — that’s a hot lead with a full calendar.

Two: two attempts is not follow-up. Across contractor accounts we manage, a large share of leads that eventually book do so on the third contact or later. If you stop at two, you’re systematically throwing away the back half of everything you paid for.

Here’s what that costs. Say you’re spending $6,000 a month and generating 120 leads. You currently book 24 of them. If a real cadence gets you to 33 — an entirely ordinary improvement from persistence alone — you just added nine booked jobs for zero additional ad spend. At a $7,500 average ticket, that’s $67,500 in revenue that was already sitting in your CRM.

That’s why follow-up is the highest-return work in contractor marketing. You’ve already paid for the lead. Everything after that is margin.

What does an actual follow-up cadence look like?

Here’s a 14-day sequence that works across trades. Adjust the timing for urgency — an emergency plumbing lead compresses to hours, a remodel lead stretches out.

Minute 0–5 — Text, then call. Text first, because it lands even when they can’t talk, and it turns your number from unknown into recognized. Then call. If they don’t pick up, leave a voicemail that says who you are, what they requested, and when you’ll try again.

Hour 1 — Second call, different time of day. If the first attempt was 10am, try 4pm.

Day 1 — Call plus email. The email carries proof: recent jobs like theirs, your reviews, your license and insurance. This is the touch that answers “are these people legitimate?” — a question they never ask you out loud.

Day 2 — Text with a specific question. Not “just checking in.” Something they can answer with one thumb: “Are you still looking to get the roof looked at, or did you get it handled?” Give them an easy out. A clean “no” is worth more than silence, because it frees your team.

Day 4 — Call.

Day 7 — Value touch. Send something useful with no ask attached. What to look for on an inspection. What a fair quote for their scope includes. Common mistakes homeowners make hiring your trade. You’re establishing that you’re the knowledgeable one before you ever quote.

Day 10 — Call.

Day 14 — Breakup message. “I’ll stop reaching out — but if the [issue] comes back, my number’s here. Happy to take a look anytime.” This message pulls responses at a surprising rate. Removing the pressure is what does it.

After day 14 — Monthly, forever. One low-effort touch a month: seasonal reminder, a job you did nearby, a maintenance tip. Some convert nine months out, when the small leak becomes a big one.

Six to eight touches, spread across three channels, ending in a graceful exit. That’s the whole thing. The system’s power isn’t cleverness — it’s that it runs whether or not anyone remembers to run it.

Which channel works for which touch?

Text is your highest-response channel and your worst closing channel. Use it to get a reply, confirm details, and set appointments. Don’t sell scope or price over text — you’ll get ghosted mid-negotiation with no way to recover.

Phone closes. Every meaningful conversation — scope, budget, timeline, objections — happens on a call. Text’s job is to earn the call.

Email builds credibility and does the heavy lifting on proof. Nobody books off an email in this industry, but plenty of homeowners decide you’re the real one because of one.

Practical detail most contractors miss: use one consistent number across calls and texts. When you call from the office line and text from a rep’s cell, the homeowner sees two strangers instead of one company.

How do you stop no-shows once the appointment is booked?

Booking the appointment is not the finish line. The gap between booked and sat is where a shocking amount of ad spend dies.

A homeowner who books on Tuesday for Saturday has four days to forget you, get another quote, or lose interest. Typical show rates without any confirmation system tend to sit in the 50–60% range. A confirmation sequence pushes that dramatically higher, and it’s five messages:

1. Immediately on booking — text confirmation with date, time, address, and the name of who’s coming.
2. 24 hours before — reminder with a one-tap reply to confirm or reschedule.
3. Morning of — “We’re still on for 2pm today.”
4. 30 minutes out — “Dave’s on his way, silver truck.”
5. If they don’t confirm at the 24-hour mark — a live call from a human.

That last one matters most. An unconfirmed appointment is not an appointment; it’s a hope. Call it, or expect to eat the drive time.

Put real numbers on this before deciding it isn’t worth building. If you run 40 appointments a month, show 60%, and each sit is worth roughly $2,200 in expected revenue after close rate, the 16 no-shows are costing you around $35,000 a month in opportunity, plus fuel and payroll. The no-show cost calculator will do that arithmetic with your numbers, and the conversion rate calculator shows what each stage of the funnel is actually worth improving.

Who should own follow-up — a person or software?

Both, in specific roles.

Automate the timing. No human reliably remembers that the lead from eleven days ago is due for a call today. A CRM with a follow-up workflow does. Instant text-back, appointment reminders, the day-7 value touch, the monthly nurture — all of it should fire without anyone deciding to.

Keep humans on the conversation. The moment a homeowner replies, a person takes over. Automated sequences that keep sending scheduled messages after someone has replied are worse than no system at all — they tell the homeowner nobody is actually paying attention.

The rule: automation initiates, humans respond. Any workflow that violates that will eventually embarrass you.

What should you do with old leads?

Every contractor has a list of a few hundred people who inquired over the last two years and never booked. Most of that list is genuinely dead. Some of it isn’t.

A reactivation campaign to a stale list is the cheapest revenue available. One text, sent to everyone who inquired more than 90 days ago and never became a customer:

“Hi [Name] — James at [Company]. You reached out a while back about [service]. Did you ever get that sorted?”

That’s it. No offer, no pitch, no discount. A single question. Expect most to ignore it, a handful to say they got it handled, and a small number to say “actually, I still need that.” At contractor ticket sizes, a small number is a good month.

Two rules. Only text people who gave you their number and asked to be contacted — respect opt-outs and your state’s rules on commercial messaging. And send in batches you can handle; blasting 800 people on a Monday when one person is answering the phone turns a good idea into a bad one.

Where follow-up sits against everything else

Contractors reliably want more leads when what they need is better handling of the leads they have. Fix follow-up before you scale traffic. It’s cheaper, it’s faster, and it makes every channel you add afterward more profitable — including the ones in how to get more roofing leads.

FAQ

How many times should you follow up with a lead before giving up?

Six to eight attempts across roughly 14 days, then a monthly check-in indefinitely. Most contractors stop at two, which is why so many paid-for leads never book. A large share of leads that eventually convert do so on the third touch or later, so quitting early systematically discards the back half of every campaign.

Is it better to call or text a new lead?

Do both, text first. Text lands even when someone can’t talk and converts your unknown number into a recognized one, which makes the follow-up call far more likely to be answered. Phone is where the actual conversation happens — scope, budget, timeline — so text’s real job is to earn the call, not replace it.

What’s a realistic show rate for booked appointments?

Without a confirmation system, 50–60% is typical. With a five-touch sequence — booking confirmation, 24-hour reminder, morning-of message, 30-minutes-out heads-up, and a live call to anyone who hasn’t confirmed — show rates climb substantially. The live call to unconfirmed appointments does more work than the four automated messages combined.

Should follow-up be automated or done by a person?

Automation should control the timing; humans should control the conversation. Software is reliable about firing a day-7 touch that no person will remember. But the moment a homeowner replies, a human takes over — sequences that keep sending scheduled messages after someone has written back signal that nobody is paying attention.

Do reactivation campaigns to old leads actually work?

Often, yes, and they’re the cheapest revenue in the business because the leads are already paid for. A single plain-text question — “You reached out a while back about [service]; did you ever get that sorted?” — to everyone who inquired 90+ days ago and never bought will surface a handful of live opportunities. Only message people who gave you their number, honor opt-outs, and send in batches your team can handle.