Recently I mystery shopped 50 businesses across Australia and New Zealand — automotive, education, fitness and wellness, home services, hospitality and veterinary — to see how they actually respond to a new customer enquiry.
I set the enquiries up for success by:
- Contacting these businesses in their business hours
- Contacting them via a channel that was promoted on their website
- Where possible in the enquiry process, I made my enquiry personalised and showed genuine interest interested in their product or service
Each enquiry was timed against four outcomes: was I followed up within 5 minutes, was I followed up within 1 hour, was I followed up within 1 working day, or was I not followed up at all within 1 working day.
This sits alongside the article I published back in June where I shared on the value of timely follow-up. That article drew on Harvard Business Review and MIT research — our data puts real, current ANZ numbers next to those global benchmarks.
The headline numbers
2% of enquiries received a personal follow-up within 5 minutes (1 of 50)
28% were followed up within 1 hour (14 of 50)
22% were followed up within 1 working day, but not within 1 hour (11 of 50)
48% received no follow-up at all within 1 working day (24 of 50)
Put together, 52% of businesses followed up within a working day in some form. That means the other 48% — just under half — let a genuine enquiry go unanswered for at least a full working day, if they responded at all.
Speed is only half the story
We also looked at whether the follow-up itself felt personalised — using the customer’s name, referencing the specific enquiry, adjusting to what was said — versus a generic or transactional response.
Of the 26 businesses that follow-up within one day, only 15 made it feel personal. The rest, while they followed up, gave a scripted or transactional response.
How it varied by sector
The top three performing sectors in this project were Veterinary practices (100% follow-up), Fitness and wellness (78% follow-up) and Education Providers (75% follow-up).
The only follow-up response that occurred in under 5 minutes was from the Automotive sector.
How this compares to the global research
HBR found that among companies that do respond within 30 days, the average response time is 42 hours — and only 37% of responders replied within an hour. Our ANZ sample sits a little behind that hourly benchmark: 30% of the 50 enquiries (5-minute and 1-hour responses combined) were actioned within an hour.
HBR’s research didn’t quantify how many companies never respond at all. Our data shows that 48% of the businesses we approached hadn’t followed up at all within a full working day. And on the MIT finding that 5-minute response dramatically outperforms even a 30-minute one — only 1 of our 50 enquiries hit that 5-minute mark.
The takeaway
None of this is about calling out any one business — it’s simply what 50 real enquiries, sent the way a genuine customer would send them, actually experienced. The pattern is consistent with what the research already tells us: most businesses invest heavily to generate an enquiry, then let momentum stall in the hours that matter most.
Of the 50 businesses we enquired with, only 30% responded within one day and made it feel personal. That means 70% of these businesses have an opportunity in their business for improvement.
A one-off check tells you what happened on one day, with one team member, for one type of enquiry. Response times and follow-ups tend to drift over time, especially as new starters join, workloads change, or a team gets busy. The businesses with consistent personalised follow-up tend to be the ones who measure it on an ongoing basis, not just once. It’s a standard that is tracked and coached, not just a box to be ticked.
No business is immune and no customer channel is exempt. If you’ve got a website, an email address, social media accounts or a listed phone number then there’s likely an opportunity in your business to follow-up with all enquiries faster and in a way that’s personalised and genuine.
