Answer every roofing lead by text in under a minute, storm or no storm

Why roofers lose leads they already paid for

Roofing leads go cold faster than most owners think, because the person asking is often standing under a drip. The lead was paid for, in ad spend, in SEO effort or in years of referrals, and then it waits.

Run the numbers on your own season. Say your company receives 90 leads in a typical month and the average signed replacement is worth $14,000. If you close 20% of leads you reach quickly but only 10% of the ones that wait half a day, and a third of your leads currently wait that long, the slow third costs you about three signed roofs a month. That's roughly $42,000 in monthly revenue drifting to whoever replied first.

Instant text response doesn't win every one of those back. It removes the waiting, which is the part you control. The lead response guide shows how to measure your own gap before spending anything.

What a good first text looks like

A good first text tells the homeowner they reached a real roofing company, asks one question that separates urgent from routine, and says when a person will follow up. It never promises a price or a time you can't keep.

Here's a template we might start from:

Hi, it's [Business name]. Thanks for reaching out about your roof. Is water coming in right now? Reply YES or NO. [Your first name] will text you back by [time] either way. Reply STOP to opt out.

Two words from the homeowner tell your team where the lead belongs. A YES gets routed to whoever handles active leaks; a NO gets a short inspection booking flow that asks for the address, roof age and a couple of photos.

Storm season changes everything

A windstorm or a hail cell can bring a week's worth of leads into a single afternoon, and that is precisely when phones go unanswered. Owners who prepare a storm mode before the season keep their reputation; owners who improvise often don't.

Our storm-surge texting mode is a pre-approved set of messages your team switches on when the weather turns. It acknowledges every lead immediately, sorts active leaks from cosmetic damage, gives honest wait times and keeps a fair queue. It also keeps you clearly separate from storm chasers: no pressure, no "today only" offers, no vague insurance promises.

The four services

Each service works on its own, but most roofing owners start with the first two.

• Instant text reply for roof leads: the trigger, the first message and routing rules for web quotes, ads, profile messages and missed calls.
• Storm-surge texting mode: the playbook for the busiest, most chaotic days of your year.
• Inspection booking and photo intake by text: get the facts and a time slot without phone tag.
• Estimate follow-up for long roofing decisions: stay in the conversation during the weeks a homeowner compares quotes.

The services overview helps you decide where to begin.

Texting that respects the homeowner and the law

Roofing has a trust problem after every big storm, so how you text matters as much as how fast. Canada's anti-spam legislation covers commercial texts as well as email.

According to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada's consent guidance, implied consent from an inquiry may last as little as 6 months, unsubscribe requests must be actioned within 10 business days, and each message needs to identify who is sending it. ISED's page on texting for good client relations adds sensible habits such as offering a STOP reply and avoiding requests for personal details by text. The CRTC enforces the law. We summarise these sources; we don't give legal advice. Our guide on trustworthy storm texting goes further.

Proof from our HVAC work

We haven't published roofing case studies, so we won't borrow anyone else's. These are results from our HVAC work, where more inbound leads made fast response essential:

• BCWide.ca reached 3× leads in 90 days.
• HVACDeal.ca produced 500+ leads at a 12:1 ROI.
• CanroHeat.ca recorded 250% lead growth.

Texting alone didn't produce those numbers. They show what happens when a trade business starts getting more inquiries, which is exactly when slow replies begin to hurt. The results page explains what carries over to roofing.

Where we work and how to start

We work with roofing companies in all 10 provinces and 3 territories, by video call or in person as well as by phone, text and email. Each region page covers the storm patterns, regulators and language rules that shape texting there, from Prairie hail to Atlantic post-tropical storms.

Before we talk, pull last month's lead list and call log. Count the leads, note how long each waited for a first reply, and mark which ones signed. Bring that to a free consultation and you'll know within half an hour whether instant text response is worth it for your company. Plans and contracts are on the pricing page, and common objections are answered in the FAQ.

Our parent agency for trades is Trades.Agency. If you run a different trade, CallText.Chat covers missed-call text-back more broadly. Reach us any time through the contact page.