How Long Is Too Long to Reply to a New Client Enquiry?

Someone fills in your contact form at 8.40 on a Tuesday night. They might be a parent looking for a speech pathologist, a daughter organising home care for her dad, or a participant changing NDIS providers. They hit send, and then they wait.

How long do they wait? If you're not sure, you're not alone, and it's the right place to start. I've worked inside an NDIS and aged care provider since 2017, first in marketing and then in the systems behind it, and this is the first question I'd ask about any front door.

A "reply" is three different things

When we talk about reply time, we usually mix up three separate steps:

1. Acknowledgement. "We've got your message, here's what happens next."
2. Answer. A person responds to what they actually asked.
3. Booking. An appointment, intake call or service agreement is set.

Each has its own clock. An acknowledgement can be instant and automatic. An answer needs a person who knows your services. A booking depends on availability, funding and fit. If you only track one number, track the gap between the enquiry and the first human answer. That's the one people feel.

Find your real reply time this week

Before you set any rule, find out where you are now. It takes about half an hour.

• Pull your last 20 enquiries from wherever they land: website form, email inbox, Facebook messages, phone messages.
• For each one, write down three times in a simple sheet: when it arrived, when someone first replied, and when it was booked (or closed).
• Note the day of the week and whether it came in after hours.
• Mark who replied, if more than one person handles enquiries.

Look at the pattern, not the average. You'll often find weekday-morning enquiries are answered quickly while Friday-afternoon and weekend ones sit for days. That's the gap to close first.

Set a reply-time rule your team can keep

A rule only works if it fits your staffing. Write it down in one sentence, for example: "Every enquiry gets an automatic acknowledgement straight away, and a person replies by the end of the next business day."

Then decide:

• Who owns the inbox each day, including leave and sick days.
• What counts as done: a real reply, not just "seen".
• Where the rule lives: in your intake procedure, not just in someone's head.

The instant reply: three lines

The automatic acknowledgement doesn't need to be clever. It needs to be clear and kind. Three lines is enough:

1. Thanks. "Thanks for getting in touch with [practice name]."
2. What happens next. "One of our team will read your message and reply."
3. Who and when. "[Name or role] will contact you by [time frame] on the phone number or email you gave us."

Add a fourth line that is not optional:

What the auto-reply must never do

This is where the judgement sits. Your instant reply must not:

• Give any clinical advice or answer a health question. Anything health-related waits for the right person. If they need help now, they should check with their practitioner or call the numbers above.
• Confirm prices, funding eligibility or availability you haven't checked.
• Promise an appointment time.
• Try to "handle" an upset or distressing message. Those go straight to a person, flagged for same-day attention.

Where it gets built

You probably already have the tools. The shape is the same whatever you use:

1. The form. Check where your website contact form sends its notifications. Many form tools can also send an automatic email to the person who filled it in.
2. The message. Paste your three-line reply (plus the emergency line) into that automatic email. If your form collects a mobile number and your practice software or phone system can send SMS, consider a short text version too.
3. The handover. Make sure the enquiry also lands somewhere a named person checks daily, with the time it arrived visible.
4. The test. Submit a fake enquiry yourself, at night, from your phone. Read what arrives as if you were the worried family member.

The prompt you give your AI

A chat tool can help you draft the wording in your practice's voice. But it only knows what you tell it. The thinking stays with you.

I run [type of practice, e.g. a paediatric OT clinic] in [suburb/region].
Our enquiries come from [parents, participants, support coordinators, GPs].
Write a 3-line automatic reply for our website contact form.

Line 1: thank them by our practice name, [practice name].
Line 2: say a person will read their message and reply.
Line 3: say [role, e.g. "our intake coordinator"] will contact them by
[time frame, e.g. "the end of the next business day"].
Then add this line exactly: "If this is an emergency, call 000. If you need
to talk to someone now, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14."

Tone: warm, plain, Australian spelling, no exclamation marks.
Do NOT: give health advice, mention prices, promise appointment times,
or ask them to explain their situation in more detail.
Give me 3 versions so I can choose.

Read every version out loud before you pick one. If any line could be taken as advice or a promise, cut it.

What a person must still decide

• What your reply-time rule is, based on your real staffing.
• Who owns the inbox, every day of the week.
• Which messages skip the queue because they sound urgent or distressed.
• The exact wording that goes out under your practice's name.
• Whether the auto-reply is working, by re-checking your 20 enquiries in a month.

Your checklist

• Pull the last 20 enquiries and log arrival, first human reply and booking times
• Write your reply-time rule in one sentence
• Name an inbox owner for every day, including cover
• Draft the three-line reply plus the emergency line
• Remove anything clinical, pricing-related or promissory
• Set it up in your form or practice software
• Send yourself a test enquiry after hours
• Re-measure in four weeks

If you'd like this set up for you, that's what the free check is for.

General information only — not clinical, legal or financial advice. No client is named and nothing here describes a patient or participant. Written by Aishah Shah, Western Sydney.