How a catering company stopped losing 14% of its leads

Draft for Dan's approval - numbers are from the live Game and Flames system; the narrative wants his read-through before promotion.

When I first went through the Game and Flames inbox properly, I was not looking for anything dramatic. I wanted a baseline: how many enquiries were coming in, how fast they were being answered, and what happened to the ones that went quiet.

The answer to the last question was the expensive one. Out of the previous 90 days of enquiries, 14% had never received a reply at all.

Not neglect - physics

Nobody was being lazy. Wedding catering enquiries arrive at 10pm on a Sunday, mid-service on a Saturday, and in the middle of a tasting. Each one that arrives at a bad moment gets mentally filed as "tonight", and some nights never come. Multiply by a busy season and you get a leak nobody can see, because unanswered emails do not make a sound.

At wedding-catering job values, 14% of enquiries is five figures a year. That was the whole business case in one line.

The three changes

1. Every enquiry gets logged the morning it arrives. Not in someone's head - in a CRM, with a status. If it is not logged, it does not exist, and things that do not exist cannot be chased.
2. Same-day first replies, drafted by AI, signed off by a human. The draft takes seconds. The sign-off keeps it human. The customer gets a real answer to their actual question the day they asked it.
3. A 7-day chase cadence with a cap. No reply? Chase on a schedule - up to three touches, then mark it gone cold and stop. Most bookings that were going to happen have happened by touch three. The cap keeps it respectful.

What changed

The pipeline now runs at roughly 150 live leads with over 80,000 pounds of proposals in play, operated by one person. And because everything is logged, the monthly report can trace outcomes to sources - which is how we know one 13,000 pound wedding came from about 100 pounds a week of ad spend.

That report is the part owners underestimate. Fixing the leak is satisfying; being able to prove what your marketing made you is what changes decisions.

Want the same numbers for your business?

The 495 pound audit is exactly this process pointed at your inbox: one week, your last 90 days, and a report that says how many enquiries went unanswered and what that cost. If it turns out you are not leaking - genuinely good news, and you are out one week and 495 pounds for the certainty.