Win more of your leads · Every business
Why Answering Within an Hour Can Decide Who Gets the Job
Speed to lead, the time between a customer's first inquiry and a real reply, is one of the few sales numbers an owner controls completely, and the research on it points to the first hour.
At a glance
- In an audit of 2,241 U.S. companies published in Harvard Business Review, 37% answered a web inquiry within an hour and 23% never answered at all; the average reply among those that answered took 42 hours.
- A companion analysis of 1.25 million leads found that firms that tried to reach a customer within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to reach a decision maker as firms that waited an hour longer, and more than 60 times as likely as firms that waited a day or more.
- For an illustrative business getting 12 inquiries a week, answering the slow half within the hour could add about $18,000 a year in first jobs.
The number and where it comes from
The best-known evidence on response time comes from two linked studies by researchers at MIT, Harvard Business School and a sales software company, published in Harvard Business Review in 2011. In the first, researchers sent a web inquiry to each of 2,241 U.S. companies and timed the replies; in the second, they analyzed 1.25 million sales leads at 42 companies (29 selling to consumers and 13 to businesses) to see how the timing of the first attempt affected the chance of a real conversation with the person who decides.
The companion analysis showed what those delays cost. Firms that tried to reach a customer within an hour of the inquiry were nearly seven times as likely to have a meaningful conversation with the decision maker as firms that tried an hour later, and more than 60 times as likely as firms that waited 24 hours or more.
An earlier study presented in 2007 by an MIT researcher and a sales software company, covering more than 15,000 web leads and more than 100,000 call attempts at six companies, found the drop starts within minutes, with the odds of reaching a lead falling 100 times between a call at five minutes and a call at 30. That study was published as a conference summary rather than a peer-reviewed paper, so it is better read as a direction than a precise rate.
All of this research came from companies with sales teams, not salons or plumbing shops, and the exact ratios won't carry over. The pattern still fits how people hire local services, because a customer with a broken furnace or a wedding date may contact several businesses at once, and the first to reply gets the first real conversation.
The worked calculation
The value of answering faster depends on three of your own numbers: how many inquiries arrive, how many you currently answer late, and how much more often a fast answer books than a slow one.
| Inquiries per week (calls, texts, forms) (Assumption) | 12 |
|---|---|
| Share answered after the first hour today (Assumption) | 50% |
| Inquiries answered late per week (Calculated (12 × 50%)) | 6 |
| Booking rate when answered within an hour (Assumption) | 35% |
| Booking rate when answered later (Assumption) | 20% |
| Extra bookings per week if all six were answered fast (Calculated (6 × 15 points)) | 0.9 |
| Average first job (Assumption) | $400 |
| Weeks open per year (Assumption) | 50 |
| Added first-job revenue per year (Calculated (0.9 × $400 × 50)) | $18,000 |
Illustrative example; replace every assumption with your own numbers. The two booking rates are the inputs to test in your own business, since the research measured conversations rather than bookings.
The figure counts only first jobs. A customer who books once and returns brings more, and replacing customers you lose to a faster competitor costs far more than keeping them; a summary of retention research in Harvard Business Review puts the cost of winning a new customer at five to 25 times the cost of keeping one.
Widget note for the site: a lean calculator with three sliders (inquiries per week, share answered late, average first job) and one result, added revenue per year, with the two booking rates set as editable defaults.
How you compare
- Within the hour: 37% of the companies in the HBR audit answered within an hour. Answering every inquiry within the hour puts a business ahead of most of them.
- Never: 23% never answered. A missed-call text and a shared inbox for web forms are the usual first fixes.
- Your own baseline: for one week, write down when each inquiry arrived and when someone replied, then count how many waited more than an hour.
Sources
- Oldroyd, J. B., McElheran, K. and Elkington, D. The Short Life of Online Sales Leads. Harvard Business Review, March 2011. Audit of 2,241 U.S. companies; companion analysis of 1.25 million leads at 42 companies.
- Elkington, D. and Oldroyd, J. B. The Lead Response Management Study. Presented at the MarketingSherpa B2B Demand Generation Summit, 2007. More than 15,000 leads and 100,000 call attempts at six companies; conference summary, not peer reviewed.
- Gallo, A. The Value of Keeping the Right Customers. Harvard Business Review, 2014.
Related reading: What Doing Nothing Really Costs a Small Service Business · The Real Cost of a Missed Call for Plumbers, Electricians and HVAC Shops · What to Do When You Can't Answer the Phone: Missed-Call Text-Back for Service Businesses · The Cost of Inaction (free live session)
Work with osNOVA on answering every inquiry within the hour
We help owner-run service businesses set up the habits and simple tools that get every call, text and web form a real reply within the hour, from a missed-call text to a shared inbox and a weekly response-time count, so more first contacts become first visits.
Email hello@osnovaops.com about your business
Or leave your email and we will reach out
Tell us what kind of business you run and what you want more of.
Not ready to talk? osNOVA runs free live events for owners.