# Speed to Lead: Lead Response Time Statistics

Speed to lead is how fast a company contacts a new lead after they ask to hear from it. The first minutes matter most: in the InsideSales.com and MIT study of more than 15,000 web leads, calling within 5 minutes instead of 30 made the odds of reaching the lead 100 times higher, and of qualifying them 21 times higher. Yet most companies are slow. In an audit of 2,241 US companies reported in Harvard Business Review, the average response took 42 hours, and 23% never responded.

## Speed to lead statistics

| Finding | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Calling within 5 minutes instead of 30 | Odds of reaching the lead 100 times higher, of qualifying them 21 times higher | InsideSales.com and MIT (2007) |
| Waiting 10 minutes instead of 5 | Odds of reaching the lead 5 times lower, of qualifying them 4 times lower | InsideSales.com and MIT (2007) |
| Waiting through the first hour | Odds of reaching the lead fall more than 10 times, of qualifying them more than 6 times | InsideSales.com and MIT (2007) |
| Responding within an hour instead of an hour later | Nearly 7 times as likely to qualify the lead (1.25 million leads) | Harvard Business Review (2011) |
| Responding within an hour instead of after 24 hours | More than 60 times as likely to qualify the lead | Harvard Business Review (2011) |
| Average response time | 42 hours; 23% of 2,241 US companies never responded | Harvard Business Review (2011) |
| Calls to new demo requests | None of 114 B2B companies called within 5 minutes; average first call 14 hours 29 minutes | Workato |
| Replies to new demo requests | 7% replied within 60 seconds; nearly 30% never replied | Chili Piper (2022) |

## How fast companies respond to a new web lead

Audit of 2,241 US companies (Harvard Business Review, 2011): 37% within an hour, 16% within 24 hours, 24% after more than 24 hours, 23% never.

## Best time to call a new lead

- As soon as it arrives: response time mattered far more than the day or hour.
- 4 to 6pm was the best time to reach a lead; 8 to 9am and 4 to 5pm the best times to qualify one.
- Wednesday and Thursday were the best days.
- After 20 hours, every extra call attempt hurt the chance of qualifying the lead.

Sources: [InsideSales.com and MIT study (PDF)](https://www.mortech.com/hs-fs/hub/25649/file-13535879-pdf/docs/mit_study.pdf), [Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads), [SmartCompany report of the HBR figures](https://www.smartcompany.com.au/marketing/20110704-are-you-letting-online-leads-go-cold/), [Workato](https://workato.com/the-connector/lead-response-time-study), [Chili Piper](https://www.chilipiper.com/article/chili-insights-vendor-response-time)

Page: https://switchstack.io/speed-to-lead