Question

How fast should a business reply to a lead?

Locus Intelligence team
Updated 2 min readDesk · Nurture

Short answer 30 words

As fast as possible, and within an hour at the latest. Leads contacted within an hour are about seven times as likely to qualify as those contacted later (HBR, 2011).

The fuller answer

Minutes are better than hours. After hours, an automatic first reply keeps the conversation alive until a person is available.

See lead response time.

A reply standard
  1. Under 5 minutes

    First response in hours

  2. Within 1 hour

    Latest acceptable

  3. Next morning

    Only for after-hours, with an auto reply sent

Your next steps

Today

  1. Check your current reply time.

This week

  1. Set a standard.

This month

  1. Report it per location.
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