The roofs you inspected and never signed
A roofing company pays for the lead, the ladder and the inspection, then loses the job later: an estimate nobody chases, a contract missing its cancellation notices, a financing line that breaks the rules, a storm-week phone that rings out, or a hailstorm that arrives after the office has locked up.
Estimates go out and nobody calls back
Only 16% of contractors told ServiceTitan they follow up with homeowners the same day on unsold estimates. The figure comes from its 2026 market report on roofing and exterior work, built on a survey it paid for of over 1,000 roofing-focused firms, which skews toward the bigger ones. On insurance work the homeowner is often still waiting on an adjuster, and in our experience the roofer who is still in touch when the claim settles gets the signature.
The fix. Run four touches on every unsigned estimate. Same day, a text from the estimator with the estimate attached and a sentence repeating what worried the homeowner, like "the soft spot over the garage." Day 2, a call: "Anything in there you want me to walk through?" Day 7, the photos from their roof or a finished job on a nearby street. Day 14: "Keep it open, update it later, or close it out?" On a claim, ask when the adjuster is coming and set one reminder for the day after.
Signed on the spot, with no three-day notice
The FTC Cooling-Off Rule lets a buyer back out of most sales of $25 or more made in their own home until midnight of the third business day, and Saturday counts as one. At signing, the seller must tell the buyer about it and leave a dated contract plus two copies of a cancellation form. California goes further: a homeowner pays no more than 10% of the price or $1,000 up front, whichever is smaller, and buyers 65 and over get five business days to cancel.
The fix. Put a checklist in every estimator's folder: say the cancellation right out loud, hand over two completed cancellation notices showing your business name and address and the transaction date, and date the contract. A repair the homeowner asked you to come and do falls outside the rule, but anything extra sold on that visit is covered, and waiving the three days for an emergency takes a buyer-initiated call plus the buyer's own handwritten, signed and dated statement. California contractors use the state's notice forms. This is not legal advice; confirm it with counsel.
A monthly payment on the yard sign and nothing else
Truth in Lending's advertising rule, Regulation Z, binds whoever advertises the credit, so a roofer's yard sign counts as much as the lender's brochure. Name a monthly figure, how many payments, or what is due up front, and the same ad owes the reader the APR, the full repayment schedule and the amount down. Deferred-interest promos carry a rule of their own: the words "if paid in full" and the length of the promo sit right next to each "no interest" claim, not in small print at the bottom.
The fix. Run financing copy one of two ways: "Financing available" with no numbers, or the lender's approved wording with every required term, including the down payment even when it is zero. A written estimate for one homeowner is not an advertisement under the rule, but the same offer sent to every open lead may be. Ask the lender whether the product is open-end or closed-end credit, because the wording rules differ, and have counsel review the promo.
Storm week, and nearly half the calls never reach a person
Invoca's 2026 chart has no roofing bar. Across home services, 52% of calls reached a person, and on phone leads staff captured the caller's details 62% of the time. In our experience, in a hail week that gap is the difference between an address on the inspection list and a homeowner who signs with the next truck down the street.
The fix. Line up overflow answering before your storm season starts, an answering service or a second line staffed from the office, with one script: name, callback number and address first, then the damage. Text any missed caller once from the same number, with no offer in it. And since October 1, 2026, a missed Local Services call during your listed hours can be billed if the caller holds past 20 seconds, so trim those hours to the ones someone covers.
The hail that falls after the office has closed
We sorted all 43,582 NOAA Storm Prediction Center hail reports from 2021 to 2025 by their time stamp. Two in three (66.9%) came on a weekend or outside 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a weekday, in the Central Standard Time the database records, and in Texas the share was 74.4%. The single busiest hour nationally was 5 to 6 p.m. A homeowner who hears hail on the roof at dinner time calls that evening, and in our experience the roofer who books the inspection first is often the one who walks the roof with the adjuster.
The fix. Settle before your hail window opens who answers from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. and on weekends: an estimator on call with the inspection calendar on a phone, an answering service that books into the morning, or an AI voice agent that says in its first sentence that it is automated, takes the address, the damage and the insurer, books an inspection slot and texts the on-call estimator. Nobody climbs a wet roof at night, so the goal after hours is a booked time, not a truck. Disclosure and call-recording rules differ by state; this is not legal advice, so confirm yours with counsel.
