Your Best Leads Are Coming In When You Are Closed
Here is a pattern every letting agent recognises. You arrive at the office on Monday morning to find 40+ enquiries in your inbox from the weekend. By 10am, you have managed to respond to a dozen. By lunchtime, most of those weekend applicants have already booked viewings with other agencies.
The problem is not your team's effort. The problem is that out-of-hours enquiries represent the majority of your inbound demand, and you have no one available to handle them.
When Do Tenants Actually Search for Properties?
Portal usage data tells a clear story:
- Peak browsing: 7pm-10pm weekdays - tenants search after work, when they have time to browse properly
- Weekend surges - Saturday and Sunday see significant search volume, particularly Sunday evenings as people plan their week ahead
- Lunchtime spikes - a secondary peak between 12pm-1pm as people browse on their break
The mismatch is obvious. Your office is staffed 9-to-5:30, Monday to Friday. Your highest-value leads are arriving 6pm-10pm and all weekend.
Why Out-of-Hours Response Matters More in Lettings
In property sales, the timeline is measured in months. A buyer who enquires on Saturday evening is unlikely to complete with another agent by Monday.
In lettings, the timeline is measured in days or hours. A tenant searching on Sunday evening wants to view on Monday or Tuesday and move in within two weeks. The first agency to respond with available viewing slots wins.
This is not speculation. Agencies that respond to enquiries within minutes consistently report higher viewing-to-let conversion rates and shorter void periods.
The Old Solutions Do Not Work
Agencies have tried several approaches to the out-of-hours problem:
- Auto-responders - "Thanks for your enquiry, we'll be in touch on Monday." This acknowledges receipt but does nothing to advance the booking. The applicant reads it and enquires with the next agency
- Weekend rota staffing - expensive, unpopular with staff, and still does not cover evenings. A negotiator answering emails from home at 9pm is neither productive nor sustainable
- Call centres - third-party services that answer calls but cannot book viewings, check diaries, or make decisions. They create a bottleneck rather than solving one
- Longer office hours - extending to 7pm or 8pm helps marginally but still misses the peak window and adds to staff costs
The AI Solution to Out-of-Hours
AI does not have office hours. It processes an enquiry at 11pm with the same speed, accuracy, and professionalism as one at 11am.
When a Rightmove enquiry arrives at 9:30pm on a Thursday, an AI system can:
- Read and understand the enquiry - which property, which applicant, what they are looking for
- Check your actual diary for available viewing slots
- Respond with a personalised message proposing specific times
- Confirm the booking once the applicant replies
The applicant gets a helpful response within seconds. Your negotiator arrives on Friday morning to a diary full of confirmed viewings rather than an inbox full of stale leads.
The Competitive Signal
For landlords evaluating agents, 24/7 enquiry handling is a powerful differentiator. It signals that their property will never miss a lead, regardless of when it comes in.
For tenants, the agency that responds at 9:30pm feels responsive and professional. The agency that responds at 9am the next day feels slow. First impressions in lettings are often the only impression that matters.
Making the Shift
You do not need to choose between hiring night staff and ignoring evening leads. AI bridges the gap, handling routine enquiries and viewing bookings around the clock while your team focuses on the complex work that requires human judgement.
Discover how automatic viewing booking works around the clock, read about improving your Rightmove lead management, or start a free 14-day trial with Autoprop.