The situation
Northpeak Accounting is a 12-person firm in Vancouver serving SMBs across BC. They had strong referrals, good reviews, and a reputation for quality work. What they didn't have was a system.
Inbound leads came through a contact form, a phone line, and occasionally LinkedIn. Each one landed in someone's inbox and waited — sometimes hours, sometimes until the next morning. The partners were billing full days and didn't have capacity to personally chase every inquiry the moment it came in.
The result: they were losing deals they never knew they had. A prospect who fills out a form at 7pm and gets a response the next afternoon has already booked with a competitor who called at 7:02pm.
"We were good at the work. We just weren't good at converting interest into clients. We didn't even realize how many leads we were losing until we saw the data."
— Managing Partner, Northpeak AccountingThe diagnosis
We ran a two-week lead audit before writing a line of code. What we found:
- Average first response time: 8.3 hours from inquiry to human contact
- Close rate on consultation calls: 18% — well below industry average for a firm with their referral reputation
- Follow-up cadence: none. If a prospect didn't reply to the first outreach, they were effectively gone
- CRM: a shared spreadsheet with inconsistent data and no reminders
- Booking process: back-and-forth emails to find a time, typically 3–5 exchanges
The good news: the firm's underlying conversion rate on actual consultations was strong. People who got through the friction and spoke to a partner were highly likely to convert. The leak wasn't the meeting — it was everything before it.
What we built
We designed and deployed a full closed-loop conversion system in 8 weeks.
1. AI-powered instant response
Every inbound lead — web form, email, or phone callback request — now triggers an immediate, personalised AI response within 60 seconds. The response is written in Northpeak's voice, acknowledges the specific service requested, and includes a direct booking link. At 7pm, at 11pm, on weekends — every lead gets a response that feels human and acts with urgency.
2. HubSpot CRM configured around their actual sales process
We retired the spreadsheet and built a HubSpot pipeline with five real stages mapped to how Northpeak actually sells: Inquiry → Qualified → Consultation Booked → Proposal Sent → Closed. Every contact, note, and communication now lives in one place, visible to the whole team.
3. Automated multi-touch follow-up
Leads who don't book immediately enter a 7-day nurture sequence — three touchpoints at 24, 72, and 168 hours that address common objections (cost, timing, fit) and restate the booking offer. The sequence pauses automatically the moment a prospect books or replies. No manual tracking required.
4. Calendly + Stripe integration
Consultations are now self-serve. Prospects click a link, see real availability, book a time, and pay a $150 deposit in one flow. The deposit significantly increased show rates — from 61% to 89% — because committed money creates committed attention.
"The first week after launch, we booked six consultations from leads that came in on evenings or weekends. Under the old system, those would all have waited until Monday."
— Operations Manager, Northpeak AccountingThe build timeline
The tech stack
Results at 6 months
- Average lead response time: 4 minutes (down from 8.3 hours)
- Consultation show rate: 89% (up from 61%)
- Close rate on consultations: 41% (up from 18%)
- New client ARR added: $280,000
- Admin time on lead management: near zero — the system handles it
The firm did not hire any new sales staff. The same team, with the same number of leads, closed 128% more business — because the system stopped leaking opportunities at every stage.