The number. Harvard Business Review studied 1.25 million online leads. Companies that tried to reach a lead within an hour were nearly 7x as likely to qualify it as companies that tried even an hour later. When the researchers tested 2,241 companies, 23% never replied at all.
Source: The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, HBR, 2011. “Qualify” means a real conversation with a decision maker, not a sale.
What an AI front desk does
It’s an AI assistant that picks up every new lead the moment it arrives, so none of them wait an hour for you.
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Answers | Every call, text, form and DM — in under a minute, day or night |
| Asks | Your qualifying questions, one at a time, in your words |
| Books | The good ones, straight into your calendar, with the answers attached |
| Hands off | Emergencies, complaints and anything it can’t answer — straight to you |
You stay on the job. You only hear about the leads that actually need you.
đź“‹ Paste this into your AI
Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude and fill in the two brackets. It takes a minute.
I run [type of business — e.g. a plumbing company] in [your city or area]. Build me the front desk kit I’d hand a new receptionist on day one:
- The 3–5 qualifying questions to ask every new lead, in order, worded the way I’d say them to a customer.
- One sentence on what a good-fit lead is, and a short list of what should come straight to me instead of being booked.
- The text to send within a minute of a missed call.
- Short replies to the three questions new customers ask most in my line of work — without quoting any price I haven’t given you.
Write it plainly, like a friendly person at a front desk, not a chatbot. Then ask me the three things you’d need to know to make it fit my business exactly.
What comes back is the script an AI front desk runs on — and a better one for your own phone, starting today.
The questions it asks
Three to five — the ones you already ask. For most service businesses:
- What do you need?
- Where’s the job? (your dealbreaker always goes early)
- Is it urgent?
- When works for you?
Then one sentence on what a good fit is. It applies that rule the same way at 2pm and at 2am.
The three traps
- An auto-reply isn’t a front desk. “We’ll get back to you” just moves the wait. If it doesn’t book, it’s voicemail.
- It only answers from what you give it. No made-up prices, no promised times. “Let me check with [owner]” is always allowed.
- It says it’s AI, and your texting is registered. Several US states require the disclosure, and business texts from unregistered numbers get blocked.
Start this week
- Count. Last week’s calls, texts and DMs that waited more than an hour. That’s your number.
- Paste the prompt. Get your questions, your good-fit rule and your missed-call text.
- Plug the leak. Every missed call gets that text back — starting today, however you do it.