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Glossary

Speed to lead

The time between a lead's enquiry and your first meaningful reply.

Last updated:

Speed to lead measures how quickly a business makes first useful contact after someone enquires through an ad, form, call or chat. It is usually reported as a median or average in minutes.

Research on web leads (HBR, 2011) found that firms responding within an hour were about seven times as likely to qualify the lead as those responding later, and that the average response time was 42 hours. Automated first replies bring it to seconds; the goal is a reply that helps, not just an acknowledgement.

Sources

  1. The Short Life of Online Sales Leads - Harvard Business Review (Oldroyd, McElheran, Elkington), 2011. Note: Study of 2,241 US companies' web lead responses; B2B and B2C mixed.

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