Case study · Charlotte HVAC pilot

Sub-2-second speed-to-lead. From missed call to booked job.

A Charlotte HVAC operator rebuilt inbound lead response around a single question: can we text the homeowner back before our competitor does? Here's what the pilot model assumes.

<2s response time 24/7 coverage Projected: ~$14K/yr recovered (pilot model)
The Competitor

The baseline is slower than most operators think.

For most small HVAC shops, the first human reply on a web lead doesn't arrive until the office is open, the dispatcher's inbox is caught up, and the lead is still on someone's mind. The Lead Response Management study measured the median web-lead response across a wide sample at roughly 4–6 hours; a meaningful slice never gets a reply at all. Against that baseline, even a "prompt" 30-minute response is already hours behind the conversation the homeowner is having with the next company in the list.

~4–6 hrs
Industry baseline speed-to-lead
Median first-reply time on inbound web leads across the Lead Response Management / HAE benchmark studies. Many after-hours and weekend leads never receive a reply at all.
Source: Lead Response Management study (Oldroyd, 2011) — industry benchmark commonly cited as the HVAC/SMB speed-to-lead baseline.
~50%
Inbound leads never contacted
Roughly half of inbound web and phone leads receive no human follow-up at all — most often because the lead arrived after hours, the dispatcher was on a job, or the lead slipped below the operator's triage line.
Source: InsideSales.com / Harvard Business Review reporting on lead-response benchmarks (referenced widely in HVAC industry analyses).
The Gap

What the baseline actually costs.

Translate the 4–6 hour baseline into dollars and the question stops being a productivity debate. A typical Charlotte HVAC operator's missed-lead math looks roughly like this:

Inbound leads / week~15
Avg revenue / booked HVAC job~$1,800
Typical close rate (baseline 4–6 hr reply)~10%
Leads lost to slow reply (per week)~3–4
Estimated revenue left on the table / year~$280K–$375K
Modeled / pilot assumptions — not measured customer data
Results

What the NexusOps pilot is built to recover.

The Charlotte pilot is modeled against the gap above. Numbers below are pilot assumptions and projected behavior, not validated customer outcomes — once the pilot produces measured lead-to-job conversion data, this section will be updated with real numbers.

<2s
Projected speed-to-lead
Inbound web forms, calls, and emails get a qualified, on-brand first reply within seconds — at 2pm or 2am — without dispatch pulling off a job to answer.
~$14K / yr
Projected recovered revenue (pilot model)
Conservative pilot assumption: recapturing a fraction of the ~$280K–$375K annual gap above by qualifying and routing after-hours and weekend leads that the baseline currently drops.
Pilot projections — not yet measured customer data. Conversion volume in the production database is currently 0; numbers on this page are model assumptions, not validated outcomes. Real measured results will replace these figures as the Charlotte pilot produces them.

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