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How a pest control company or other service company answers a lead from Yelp, Thumbtack or Google Local Services Ads (LSA) may affect whether the customer responds.
That’s according to LeadTruffle, an Austin, Texas-based software company that analyzed 4,699 lead conversations from 87 home service contractor accounts across the three platforms. First replies that followed a specific pattern drew a 60.5 percent response rate within 24 hours, compared with 50.3 percent for all other first replies.
The most effective replies referenced the job the customer asked about, asked a single targeted question and did not immediately request a phone number. LeadTruffle summarizes the pattern as “Thanks for reaching out about [specific job detail]. [One focused question that helps move the request forward]?”
“By the time a third-party lead reaches a contractor, the customer has usually already explained what they need,” Aaron Decker, chief technology officer and co-founder of LeadTruffle, noted in a news release about the study. “The first response should prove the business read that, not force the customer to repeat it or start over.”
The pattern performed better on every platform, including when comparing replies within the same contractor account. Reply rates were 1.3 percentage points higher on Yelp, 4.2 points higher on Thumbtack and 5.4 points higher on Google LSA.
Across the full sample, replies were less successful when they included no question, asked for a phone number before offering useful information or read like generic, copy-and-paste language.
Specificity mattered most on Thumbtack. Naming a real detail from the customer’s request was associated with a 9.5-percentage-point increase in the 24-hour reply rate, while generic phrasing such as “your request” was associated with a 14.3-point decrease. That’s a gap of roughly 24 points based on wording alone.
LeadTruffle noted the study is observational rather than a controlled experiment. It measured replies, not bookings or revenue, and confidence intervals for any single platform are wide. The company said the key takeaway is that results pointed the same direction on all three platforms.
The full methodology, data tables and a first-reply checklist are available at LeadTruffle.co/research/first-reply-benchmark.
LeadTruffle offers an artificial intelligence (AI) lead response and booking platform for home service businesses, including pest control companies.
