What the research says about how fast you answer a new lead
A Harvard Business Review study timed how 2,241 US companies replied to new inquiries. Almost a quarter never replied at all.
Most owners believe they answer new inquiries quickly. Very few have ever measured it. In 2011, three researchers did measure it, at scale, and published the results in Harvard Business Review.
What they did
They sent test inquiries through the websites of 2,241 US companies and recorded if and when each company replied. Then they combined that with data on hundreds of thousands of real leads to see how reply time related to reaching and qualifying the customer.
What they found
- 37%
- replied within an hour
- 23%
- never replied at all
- 42 hrs
- average reply time, among companies that did reply
- 7×
- as likely to qualify the lead when the reply came within an hour, versus waiting longer
The rest fell in between: 16% replied within a day, and 24% took longer than a day. Companies that replied within an hour were also more than 60 times as likely to qualify the lead as companies that waited 24 hours or more.
What it means for a service business
- A customer with a leaking pipe or a broken AC unit usually contacts more than one business. The first clear reply has a real advantage.
- Most of the gap isn’t effort, it’s timing: inquiries arrive while you’re on a job, driving or closed.
- An automatic reply and a missed-call text-back don’t replace you. They hold the customer’s attention until you can call.
What we’re careful about
The study is from 2011 and looked at US companies broadly, not only service businesses. It shows a strong link between replying fast and qualifying the lead; it doesn’t promise that replying faster will win any particular job. You may also see much larger figures quoted online, such as “100 times more likely in five minutes.” Those come from an older, much smaller dataset, so we don’t rely on them.
Check your own numbers
The simplest test is to fill in your own contact form tonight and see what happens. Or ask us to do it: our free Snapshot includes an optional response test, one after-hours call and one labelled test inquiry, timed from first contact to first reply.