What is speed to lead?
Speed to lead is the time between a prospect raising a hand (a form fill, a quote request, a missed call) and your first real attempt to reach them. It is measured in minutes, not days, because the value of a new lead falls off within the first few minutes and keeps falling every hour it sits unworked.
What does the research say about lead response time?
The original study is still the most cited. In 2007, Dr. James Oldroyd (then at MIT) and InsideSales.com analyzed over 15,000 leads and 100,000 dial attempts across six companies. The odds of making contact were 100 times higher when the first attempt came within 5 minutes rather than 30, and the odds of qualifying the lead were 21 times higher (Lead Response Management Study, 2007).
Oldroyd then audited 2,241 US companies for Harvard Business Review. Average response time to a web lead was 42 hours, 23 percent never responded, and firms that reached a lead within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify it than firms that waited an hour longer (Harvard Business Review, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads," March 2011).
Velocify's study of nearly 3.5 million leads from more than 400 companies, generated in the first half of 2012, is the source of the figure on our home services page: a first call within one minute improved conversion by 391 percent compared with later first calls. The lift halved in the second minute (160 percent) and fell to 17 percent at 24 hours. The same study found 93 percent of leads that ever convert are reached by the sixth attempt (Velocify, "The Ultimate Contact Strategy," 2012).
The newer data says the gap has not closed. Hatch analyzed 132,188 speed-to-lead campaigns run by HVAC businesses over six months of 2024: 88 percent of users (941 of 1,071) took more than 5 minutes to reply, the most common response time was one day (37 percent of users), and 78 percent of consumers go with the business that reached out first (Hatch, December 2024). In B2B, RevenueHero mystery-shopped 1,000 SaaS demo forms in 2024: 63.5 percent never responded, and among those that did, the average was about 29 hours (RevenueHero, March 2024).
Three studies over 17 years, one conclusion: the first five minutes are worth more than the next five days, and most companies miss them.
Why does a lead decay by the minute?
The prospect is still at the keyboard. In the first minute, the person who filled out your form is still on your site or still holding the phone. Ten minutes later they are in a meeting, in the car, or in the grocery store.
They fill out more forms. Solar and insurance leads are shopped. Whoever calls first gets the conversation. The second caller gets "I already talked to someone."
The lead gets buried. Every hour, more leads land on top of it. By day two it is "aged," and the callback that finally happens sounds like a cold call.
What does good speed to lead look like in each vertical?
Solar. Leads arrive from forms, ads and vendor feeds, and a big share land evenings and weekends when nobody is at the phones. Good is a call within the first minute, inside the homeowner's local calling window, with homeownership, bill and roof asked on that first call so a closer never drives to a renter. Solar playbook
Insurance. Internet leads from EverQuote, SmartFinancial, QuoteWizard and MediaAlpha reach other agencies within minutes. Good is a call within seconds, qualification on coverage, carrier and renewal, and a live transfer to a licensed agent while the shopper is still on the line. Insurance playbook
Pest control. Form fills land while techs are on routes and the office is on the phones. Good is a callback within seconds on every web lead, marketplace lead and missed call, inside calling hours. Pest control playbook
Home services generally. Hatch's 2024 data is the benchmark: most contractors respond in a day, and the first responder wins 78 percent of the time. RevStrike for home services
How does RevStrike close the speed-to-lead gap?
RevStrike is an AI voice agent that calls your own inbound leads within seconds of the lead landing, about 10 seconds end to end in measured behavior, inside the lead's local calling window, evenings and weekends included. Not a text or an email: a phone call that holds a real conversation.
On that call the agent asks your qualifying questions, the same way every time. When the lead qualifies, it books the appointment on your Google Calendar or Outlook, or live-transfers the call to your rep with a whisper summary and a press-1 accept. If no rep picks up, it books instead. Recording, transcript and outcome are written back to your CRM through Zapier or a webhook.
Every number is scrubbed against your do-not-call list before dialing, calling windows are on by default, and the agent can introduce itself as an AI (trust page). A burst of leads does not queue: the platform runs up to 25 calls at once.
How do I measure my own speed to lead?
Most teams guess. The audit takes an hour.
- Export the last 30 days of leads with the timestamp each was created.
- For each lead, find the timestamp of the first outbound phone call attempt. Count calls only; an automated email or text is not a response in any of the studies above.
- Subtract. Record the median, the 90th percentile, and the share of leads never called.
- Split by business hours versus evenings and weekends. The off-hours number is usually the one that hurts.
- Compare your median to the curve: under 1 minute, under 5 minutes, under 1 hour, same day, next day or later.
If your median is measured in hours and your off-hours leads are never called, you do not need more leads. You need to call the ones you have.
Benchmark facts for a future schema section
- First call within 1 minute: +391 percent conversion versus later first calls (Velocify, 2012; 3.5 million leads, 400+ companies).
- First attempt within 5 minutes versus 30: 100x the odds of contact, 21x the odds of qualifying (MIT and InsideSales.com, 2007).
- 2,241 US companies: 42-hour average response, 23 percent never responded, under 1 hour nearly 7x more likely to qualify (Harvard Business Review, 2011).
- 132,188 HVAC campaigns: 88 percent of users took longer than 5 minutes, most common response 1 day, 78 percent of consumers choose the first responder (Hatch, 2024).
- 1,000 B2B SaaS demo forms: 63.5 percent never responded, about 29-hour average among responders (RevenueHero, 2024).
- RevStrike measured behavior: new lead to live conversation in about 10 seconds, inside permitted calling hours (2026).