Worksheet and checklist
One measured booking rate, a marked-up intake checklist, and a scenario in the calculator.
Open the worksheetLeads, calls and bookings are different counts
People measure booking rate on calls or on leads, and the two answer different questions. A call-to-booking rate counts phone calls that turned into booked jobs. A lead booking rate counts every enquiry, whether it came by phone, form, message or referral, and asks how many became booked work.
Revvy measures the second. The lead is the unit: each one has a source, the date it arrived and, if it booked, the date it booked. Calls come in separately, each marked answered live, missed or sent to voicemail, with an optional flag for whether it booked a job. A call in Revvy's format carries no lead source, so calls cannot tell you which channel did the booking.
Pick one and keep to it, because mixing the two can count one customer twice: once as a call, once as the lead that call became. What happens to the calls themselves is covered in Missed calls on Local Services Ads: what Google says.
The 14-day trap
A lead that came in two days before you ran the export may not have been called back yet. Count it as never booked, and a busy last week looks like a booking problem. So leave out every lead created in the 14 days before the end of your period.
The 14 days are Revvy's default, set to match the line Revvy uses for stale quotes. Every default on this page (14 days, 75%, 90%) is Revvy's judgement, not an industry figure, and you can change any of them. If your leads usually book much faster or slower, change it, and then use the same number every time.
Why leaving out only the unbooked ones biases it upward
The tempting shortcut is to drop only the new leads that have not booked yet. That pushes the rate up. The new leads that booked quickly stay in, the ones still waiting come out, and the newest days look better than they were. Leave out booked and unbooked alike, and every lead in the count has had the same time to book.
leads at least 14 days old that became booked jobs ÷ leads at least 14 days oldCount both over the same leads: everything created on or before the cut-off date.
Send the leads that did not book
A booking rate needs the leads that went nowhere. An export that holds only the enquiries that turned into work will show a booking rate of 100% and tell you nothing.
Before you count, check three things in the export: every lead has a source, every booked lead has a booked status or a booked date, and the leads that never booked are still there.
The Booking-Rate Check works from a 90-day export. It has you count the leads created over the first 76 of those days and leave the last 14 out, then gives you the rate and your leads a month for the calculator.
How many leads you need
Revvy states a booking rate only from 20 leads old enough to count. Below twenty, one busy week moves the rate by several points. Nineteen leads is not a booking rate; it is nineteen leads.
Twenty is the floor. Revvy calls its confidence in a booking figure high from 80 such leads and medium from 40. If a month or a location does not reach 20, widen the period instead of reading the rate anyway.
Does speed matter?
The Lead Response Management Study, presented in 2007 by InsideSales.com and Dr. James Oldroyd of MIT Sloan, looked at how quickly companies called back web leads. It reported:
The odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times. The odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times.
Read it with its limits. It covered web-form leads at six unnamed companies, and the authors say their own customers were concentrated in mortgage and insurance. It measured contacting and qualifying a lead, not bookings or revenue, and it says so: "This study did not address close ratios."[1]
None of it is about plumbing, HVAC, roofing or electrical work, so it cannot tell you what speed is worth to your business. Revvy cannot tell you either: its leads format has a created date and a booked date, and no column for when someone first called back. If you want to know, log the time of the first call back on every lead. Once the quick ones and the slow ones each reach 20 leads old enough to count, compare their booking rates.
More leads or better conversion?
You can put both on your own numbers. More leads at today's rate add bookings at that rate, and each extra lead costs whatever you pay for one. A better rate books more of the leads you already have.
leads a month × (target rate - current rate) × completion rate × average job value × 12The calculator works this out for you. It prices one lever.
extra leads a month × current rate × completion rate × average job value × 12Your own arithmetic: set it beside what the extra leads would cost. The calculator does not price this side.
Revvy gives the booking check one of its two highest weights, with the close rate, because those leads are demand the business has already paid for. That is Revvy's judgement. If your rate is already close to your target, more leads may be the bigger lever, and the arithmetic above will show it.
The Opportunity Score calculator prices the conversion side on your inputs. It warns that it assumes your team can do the added work, that revenue is not profit, and that no other growth lever is added. Its worked example uses an 85% completion rate; Revvy's default is 90%. Use your own.
A better close rate acts on the same jobs as a better booking rate, so do not add the two figures together. Close rate on estimates: count decided quotes only explains why.
Per location
If you run several locations, measure each one the same way: the same 14-day cut-off, the same 20-lead floor, and every lead tagged with its location. A location with fewer than 20 old-enough leads in the period has a count, not a rate.
DemoNorthwind Heating & Air
Northwind Heating & Air is the demo's HVAC business, with three locations. Its dashboard in Revvy compares booking rate by location and shows a rate only where a location has at least 20 leads.
That chart counts every lead in the window, so it can differ slightly from the booking rate in the analysis, which leaves the newest 14 days out. Narrow the dashboard to one location to see that location's own score and ranges.
Questions people ask
What is a good booking rate?
We have no industry figure we could check, and Revvy holds no benchmark data. Revvy's default target is 75% of leads booked, a judgement and not an industry figure: a rate a trades business with a staffed phone and a written booking path can reach.
Compare your rate with your own last quarter, measured the same way, and try a target in the Opportunity Score calculator.
Why leave out the last 14 days?
Because those leads may not have been called back yet. Counting them as unbooked lowers the rate for a reason that has nothing to do with how well you book. Leave them all out, booked and unbooked, so every lead in the count has had the same time.
Should calls count as leads?
Count leads for the booking rate and measure calls on their own. In Revvy's format a call records whether it was answered live, missed or sent to voicemail, and whether it booked a job, but not where the caller came from. Revvy shows an answer rate once it has 20 calls.
Can I compare locations?
Yes, with the same method at each one: the same cut-off and the same 20-lead floor. A location below the floor has a count, not a rate. Compare each location with its own last quarter as well as with the others.
Sources
- InsideSales.com and Dr. James Oldroyd (MIT Sloan). Lead Response Management Study (opens in a new tab). Presented October 16, 2007; this copy saved July 17, 2008.Old, and not about home services: web-form leads at six unnamed companies, and the authors say their own customers are mostly in mortgage and insurance. A third party hosts this saved copy. It says nothing about bookings or revenue.