Answering at Nine on a Sunday

When people actually make contact

Somebody deciding about work on their house does it in their own time, which is evenings and weekends.

Enquiries cluster in those hours for most consumer-facing trades, and the businesses being contacted are closed.

So a Sunday evening enquiry sits until Monday, by which point the person has messaged three other businesses and the first reply on Monday morning is competing with all of them.

A reply on Sunday evening is competing with nothing.

Why an odd hour is worth more

• No competitor has replied yet.
• The person is still thinking about it.
• It is memorable, because it is unusual.
• The conversation can happen immediately.
• It signals how you will handle the work.

The third is worth understanding. A prompt reply on a Tuesday is expected and forgotten. A reply at nine on a Sunday is mentioned to other people, which is where a proportion of the value comes from.

Answering is not the same as working

The distinction that makes this sustainable.

You are not committing to do the job on Sunday, or to quote, or to hold a long conversation.

A two-line acknowledgement saying you have the enquiry, what you need, and when you will follow up properly does almost all of the work.

That takes a minute, can be done from a phone, and requires nothing else to happen until Monday.

Businesses avoid out-of-hours contact because they imagine the full response, and the acknowledgement is what actually matters.

Say when the real reply comes, so the acknowledgement is not mistaken for the whole of your attention.

A worked example

A trades business noticed that roughly half their enquiries arrived between six in the evening and eleven, or at the weekend.

All were answered the next working morning.

The owner began sending a two-line acknowledgement from his phone whenever he saw one, up to about nine in the evening, saying he had it and would come back with a price the next day.

He did not quote, price, or discuss anything outside working hours.

Conversion on evening and weekend enquiries improved noticeably, and several customers mentioned that he was the only one who had replied at all that day.

The additional work was a few minutes a day.

Set the boundary and state it

Because the thing that ruins this is an expectation of constant availability.

Decide the hours you will look, such as until nine in the evening and once at the weekend, and stop there.

Say it in the acknowledgement itself: I pick messages up in the evening and will call you tomorrow morning.

That is honest, sets the expectation, and prevents somebody assuming you are available at two in the morning.

The failure mode is a customer who received a reply at ten on Sunday and expects the same on Tuesday at midnight, which is created by never stating the limit.

A stated boundary is also what makes it possible to keep doing this rather than abandoning it after a month.

Do not do it badly

Since a poor out-of-hours reply is worse than none.

A tired one-word answer, or a price given carelessly from a phone, undoes the advantage.

Do not quote figures outside working hours, since a number given quickly is one you may have to correct.

Do not get into a negotiation at eleven at night, which produces decisions you would not make in the morning.

Acknowledge, ask for what you need, say when you will reply properly, and stop there.

That format is short enough to be done well every time, which is the requirement.

Say it on the site

Since availability only works as a differentiator if people know about it before they choose.

A line near the enquiry prompt saying when you actually respond, including evenings and weekends, is a reason to contact you rather than somebody else.

Be specific: messages are usually answered the same evening, including weekends, is a claim somebody can act on.

Do not claim twenty-four hour availability, which is not credible for a small business and creates the wrong expectation.

And only publish it once it is true, since a stated availability you miss is worse than saying nothing.

Not everybody wants this

Worth acknowledging, because it is presented as a universal good and is not.

Some customers dislike being contacted outside business hours and find an evening reply intrusive rather than impressive.

Match the channel they used and the time they sent it, since somebody who messaged at nine is available at nine and somebody who emailed at four is not necessarily.

Text and message replies read as less intrusive than a telephone call, which should generally wait for the morning.

And a business selling to other businesses gains far less from this than one selling to households.

Check where the notification goes

The practical prerequisite, since none of this works if you do not see the enquiry.

Form submissions arriving only as email, to an address checked on a desktop, are invisible on a Sunday evening.

Send them to a phone as well, by text or a notification, so the arrival is noticed at the moment the advantage exists.

Do the same for messages arriving through a business listing or a social account, which frequently notify somewhere nobody has installed.

Test it by submitting your own form on a Saturday and seeing whether anything reaches you, which is the only way to know.

The counter-case

This has a real cost and it is not money.

Being reachable in the evening erodes the boundary between working and not, which for an owner-operated business is already thin.

It also sets an expectation with existing customers, who will begin contacting you at those hours about ordinary matters.

And a business that answers at all hours and then burns out has traded something considerable for a few extra jobs.

Acknowledge only, within stated hours, and stop when you said you would.

What to do

1. Check when enquiries actually arrive.
2. Decide the hours you will look.
3. Send an acknowledgement, not a quote.
4. Say when the real reply comes.
5. State the boundary in the message.
6. Match the channel they used.
7. Publish it once it is reliably true.

Step three is what makes this sustainable, since the value is in being first rather than in being complete, and being first takes a minute.

The general case for speed is covered in replying within the hour.

Frequently asked questions

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