A customer messages your Facebook page at 7:40 on a Tuesday night asking if you can come look at their AC tomorrow. Nobody sees it until Thursday. By then they've booked someone else, and you never even knew you lost the job. That's how most slow replies cost you money. Quietly.
Aim to answer social media messages and questions the same business day, and never let one sit past 24 hours. Sprout Social's 2025 Index found about three quarters of consumers expect a reply within 24 hours or sooner. A small team can hit that with an instant auto-reply, set check-in times each day and a short library of saved replies.
You don't need a call center to do this well. You need a simple system that someone actually follows. Here's the one I recommend for small teams.
What customers expect, in real numbers
Sprout Social surveys consumers every year for its Sprout Social Index. In the 2025 edition, about three quarters of consumers said they expect a response within 24 hours or sooner. Almost three in four social users (73%) said they'll buy from a competitor if a brand doesn't respond on social.
Those are national numbers across every kind of brand. For a local business the stakes are even more direct. A message on your page is often someone ready to book, order or schedule right now. The first business that answers usually gets the work.
Comments, messages and reviews need different speeds
They all matter, but they don't all carry the same urgency.
- Direct messages are usually buying questions. "Do you have openings Saturday?" "How much is a cleaning?" "Do you deliver to Katy?" These are leads. Answer them first.
- Comments are public. Everyone scrolling past sees whether you answered. A quick, friendly reply tells future customers you're paying attention. If a comment asks about something personal, like a quote for their specific home, reply publicly with a short note and move the rest to a private message.
- Reviews on Google or Facebook move a little slower, but they stay visible for years. Reply within a few days, and give the negative ones extra care.
A response system a small team can keep
Here's the setup I'd put in place for a business with one to five people touching social media.
- Turn on an instant reply. Meta Business Suite lets you set automated responses in your inbox, including an instant reply for someone's first message and an away message for when you're offline. Meta walks through the options in its help page on automated responses. Your instant reply should thank them, say when a real person will answer and give your phone number for anything urgent.
- Pick set check-in times. Morning, lunch and end of day works for most businesses. Put them on the calendar like appointments. Ten minutes each is usually enough.
- Name one owner per day. When everyone watches the inbox, nobody does. One person is responsible each day, and a backup covers days off.
- Answer leads first. A thank you comment can wait until the afternoon. "Can you come out tomorrow?" can't.
- Close the loop. If you move a conversation to a phone call, say so in the thread so the next person knows it's handled.
Saved replies: write them once, use them every day
Most businesses get the same ten questions over and over. Write a clear answer to each one and save it. Your response time drops because nobody has to start from scratch, and the answers stay consistent no matter who's on duty.
A good saved reply still sounds like a person. Start from the saved text, then add the customer's name and one detail from their message. "Hi Maria, yes, we serve Pearland" beats a pasted paragraph every time.
Here's a starter checklist to write this week:
- Hours, including holidays
- Service area or the neighborhoods you cover
- How to book or request a quote
- Pricing, or an honest "it depends, and here's why"
- What to expect at a first visit
- Parking and directions
- Payment and insurance questions
- "We got your message and we'll call you shortly"
Meta's inbox tools can also answer frequently asked questions and respond to keywords automatically. That's handy for hours and location. For anything that sounds like a real buying question, I'd still have a person answer.
After hours and busy seasons
Your away message works nights and weekends for you, so make it useful. Say when you'll be back, link to your booking page if you have one and give the number to call for emergencies. For a plumber, a vet or a dental office, that last line matters a lot.
In Houston, plan for spikes. After a big storm, a hard freeze or the first brutal heat wave, home service inboxes fill up fast. Update your away message and saved replies ahead of time so people know you saw them, even if you can't get to everyone that day. Restaurants see the same rush around game days and holidays.
If your booking page or contact form is part of the answer, make sure it works on a phone. That side of things is what our sister studio HEX Web Design handles.
How to know it's working
Once a month, pull a handful of conversations and check two things. How long did people wait for a real answer? And how many of those conversations turned into a booked call or visit? You can do this by hand in about 15 minutes.
If the waits are creeping up, the fix is usually boring. Tighten the check-in times, add a saved reply for the question that keeps coming up or give the inbox a clear owner again. This is the day-to-day work inside our posting and community management, and our plain-language monthly reports show whether replies are turning into customers.
Want a second set of eyes on yours?
If you're not sure how your business is doing here, we'll take a look for free. Our Social Check looks at your profiles and posting rhythm, whether your page actually looks like you, how comments and reviews are being handled, whether any ads are aimed at the right people and whether social visits show up as calls and forms. You get a short written summary. If the answer is "not much needs to change," we'll tell you that. Request your free Social Check.
