Red River Plumbing — Reply time went from 52 minutes to 41 seconds — close rate followed.
Situation
Red River is a 6-plumber operation in north Dallas. Inbound leads came from Google Ads (~$40 CPL), a Housecall Pro form on their site, and inbound calls. The form-to-book conversion was stuck around 18% because by the time their dispatcher replied (average 52 min per their own CRM), the caller had already booked a competitor.
The baseline we wrote down
We audited 90 days of form fills: 312 total leads, 237 responses eventually sent, 42 jobs booked. Ticket average $650. The bottleneck was specifically between minute 0 and minute 30 — most replies happened 30-120 minutes after form submit.
What we installed
Speed-to-Lead SMS went live in 5 days. Every form fill triggered a personalized SMS from the business number in under 60 seconds, referencing the specific service they inquired about, with a one-tap reply to book. The AI handled the conversation until the caller was ready to book, then handed it off to the CRM. Two weeks later we added the AI Receptionist for inbound calls.
The result (month 1–1)
Median first-reply dropped from 52 minutes to 41 seconds. Form-to-book conversion moved from 18% to 47% over the first 30 days. Month-one revenue capture above baseline: $31,000. They're now running a referral competition among their plumbers because bookings-per-day went up 2.3× without any change in lead volume.
“We used to fight over leads in the morning huddle. Now the schedule is full before we walk in.”