The lead you lose is the one you answered late

A customer with a burst pipe calls three businesses and hires whoever picks up. When nobody picks up, the one who texts back within five minutes usually wins. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why automated follow-up beats a bigger ad budget for most local businesses.

The rules changed, and they have teeth

Texting people about their enquiry is legal and normal. Doing it sloppily is what creates exposure. Three things carriers and regulators now expect:

• Consent collected in writing, per program, with the two kinds kept separate: replies and reminders are not the same as promotions
• Consent boxes that are never pre-checked, next to language that says what you will send and how often
• A registered business sender, plus opt-out honoured immediately

The practical consequence: consent you collected once for "updates" does not cover a marketing blast, and buying a list covers nothing at all.

Speed wins the job. Documentation is what lets you keep using speed.

What a compliant follow-up looks like

The version that works is unremarkable. A missed call triggers a text within a minute. A new form submission gets an acknowledgement and a booking link. A confirmed appointment gets one reminder the day before. A completed job gets a single review request, once. Nothing else fires automatically.

Why this pays before ads do

You already have the enquiries. Answering them faster costs nothing per lead, while another lead from ads costs whatever the auction says. Fixing the response gap first usually raises revenue more than raising the budget.

Worth checking on your own setup

Two questions to answer honestly: how long does a missed call go unanswered, and could you show, in writing, how each number on your list opted in. If either answer is uncomfortable, tell me how enquiries reach you now and I will tell you what I would automate first.