Speed-to-lead self test
Ask an owner how fast the business answers a new customer and the answer is nearly always "pretty fast". The only way to know is to be the customer: fill in your own form, call your own number at lunch, text the business line, and time what comes back. This page keeps the clock on each test and turns the times into a scorecard that says what to fix first.
Everything you enter stays in this browser: it is saved on this device so a running clock survives closing the page, and it is never sent to us or anyone else.
How to run the test fairly
- Use a number and an email your team will not recognize. A friend's or a family member's works. Your own cell is probably saved in the office phone, and a call from the boss gets answered.
- Ask for something ordinary that you really sell. A repair, a first appointment, a quote for a standard job. An odd request gets an odd reply and tells you nothing.
- Do not warn anyone. A team that knows a test is coming answers faster that week, and the result describes a week that never happens again.
- Run at least one test outside business hours. At lunch, after closing or on a weekend. A business that is quick at ten in the morning can be silent at six in the evening, and the scorecard should show both.
- Press Start at the moment you send. Send the form, place the call or send the message, and start that test's clock at the same time. Spread the tests over a day or two so they do not arrive as a burst from one stranger.
When a test is over, tell whoever replied that it was you, so nobody spends a week chasing a customer who does not exist.
Test only the channels you own: your website, your phone lines, your text line and your own social inboxes. Do not send made-up requests through a marketplace, a pay-per-lead service or an ad platform's lead form. Some charge you for every request that comes in, test or not, and some forbid test requests in their terms.
Run the tests and time them
Press Got a reply when a person answers, not when an automatic confirmation lands. The start times are saved, so you can close the page and come back hours later: the clock counts from the moment you pressed Start. Already timed a test some other way? Type the minutes instead.
Your scorecard
The marks use our own rule of thumb, not a research finding: a real reply within five minutes is Fast, within an hour is Slow, and anything longer, or no reply at all, is Leaking. An automatic text or email on its own does not count as a reply, because the customer still has no answer; it is marked Auto reply only.
No results yet. Start a test above, or type in a time you recorded elsewhere, and the scorecard fills in here.
| Channel | Time to a real reply | What happened | Mark |
|---|
Reading the results
- Voicemail during business hours. The phone rings out when everyone is busy: at lunch, on a job, with a customer at the counter. Name one person who returns missed calls, have them check at set times each day, and change the greeting so it says when the caller will hear back. Our playbook on stopping lost jobs to missed calls sets that up step by step.
- Nothing after hours. Nobody has been given the evening. Decide who covers it, whether that is an on-call phone, an answering service or an AI agent that answers when nobody can, and write the decision down so it survives a busy month.
- A slow form or text reply. Usually nobody owns the inbox. Form emails land in an address the office checks when it remembers, or on the owner's phone to be read at night. Send every new request to one named person, with a backup who gets it if it sits. How fast to respond to a new lead lays out the routine and the first reply to send.
- A fast automatic text, then a slow person. The confirmation buys a few minutes, not the job. The customer who wanted an answer to a question still has none, and the next business on their list may give one. Make the automatic reply say who will be in touch and by when, then make sure that person is.
- No reply at all. Check that the request reached anyone. A form can send to an old address, a text can go to a landline, and a page inbox can sit unwatched for weeks. Send yourself one more test and follow it from the moment it is sent to the phone it should reach.
- One channel slow, the rest fast. Fix that one before buying anything. When every channel is slow because one person is covering all of them, that is where GoHighLevel earns its place: it texts back a missed call and follows up on every form automatically, so the person can answer the ones that need them.
Run the test again next month, and after any change to your phone system, your website or who sits at the front desk. Once replies are fast, the booked job cost tool shows which of your lead sources pays for itself.
More free tools
- No-show and cancellation policy builderPick your notice window, fee or deposit and grace period, and get a policy for your booking page, a confirmation text and a reminder plan.
- What a booked job really costs youPut your lead sources side by side with your own numbers and see which one pays for itself and which one loses money at your margin.
- Review request writerWrite a review ask for text, email or the counter in your own trade's words, check it against the FTC and Google rules, and print a QR card.
Want us to look at how your business answers?
Send us your scorecard, or just the channel that came out slowest. We will tell you where customers are dropping off, what we would fix first, and whether it needs software or only a named person and a routine. You keep the plan either way.
- A free consult. A real conversation about your business, your area and what is not working yet.
- An honest evaluation. Where you stand in search, ads and follow-up next to the businesses you lose customers to.
- A plan you keep. What we would fix first and why. It is yours whether or not you work with us.
Form not loading? Email hello@beyaoshy.com and we will reply within one business day.