Your cost per lead can look healthy while your response time quietly loses the sale. The good news: you can measure speed-to-lead today with the data you already have.
Why response time matters
In “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads” (Harvard Business Review, March 2011), researchers studied 1.25 million leads. Firms that contacted a lead within an hour were about 7 times more likely to qualify it than firms that waited even an hour longer.1 It's a 2011 study, so treat it as a direction rather than a forecast for your business. The way to know your own number is to measure it.
Measure it in 15 minutes
- Export the last 30 days of leads from your CRM, ad platform or spreadsheet. You need two columns: when the lead arrived, and when someone first made real contact (a call answered, a reply on WhatsApp).
- Add a column for the gap in minutes: first contact minus arrival.
- Count leads in four buckets: under 5 minutes, 5 to 60 minutes, 1 to 24 hours, over 24 hours. Add a fifth for no contact at all.
- Split by arrival time: working hours versus evenings and weekends. Most leaks hide in the second group.
| Bucket | Leads | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 5 minutes | 18 | 6% |
| 5 to 60 minutes | 64 | 21% |
| 1 to 24 hours | 121 | 40% |
| Over 24 hours | 43 | 14% |
| No contact | 57 | 19% |
Example figures, for illustration only.
If you can't find a first-contact time
That's the finding. If your CRM doesn't record when a lead was first contacted, you can't manage speed-to-lead. Add a “first contacted” field or stage and make it required before a lead can move to Qualified.
What to fix first
- Out-of-hours leads: an instant WhatsApp or SMS reply that confirms receipt and offers a time.
- Assignment: every new lead gets an owner automatically, not when a manager checks the inbox.
- Order: call the newest leads first, not the oldest.
- Second attempts: a missed call triggers a WhatsApp message and a reminder, not a “not interested” status.
Want us to do this for you?
Send your last 30 days of leads and we'll measure your speed-to-lead and the other four common leaks, within 48 hours. Request the free Lead Leak Audit.
1. Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads”, Harvard Business Review, March 2011. hbr.org