Speed to lead
Speed to lead is the time between a lead reaching you and a real reply going back to them. An automatic thank-you doesn't count, because the lead is still waiting for an answer to what they asked. I time it per lead, from when the form or email lands to when a reply that answers them goes out.
Why it matters
You know when the leads come in while you're on a call or with a client? A lead who just asked you a question is ready to talk now. But if you delay responding, they may already be asking someone else.
Speed is only half of it. A rushed reply can commit you to a price or a date you haven't worked out yet. So the time I watch is how long it takes to send a reply I'd stand behind.
An example
As an example, take an agency owner who gets a website inquiry on a weekday afternoon while running a client workshop. The form sends an automatic thank-you straight away. The owner sees the inquiry that evening, means to answer properly the next morning, and sends the reply just before lunch. On paper the lead heard back in seconds. Their speed to lead was most of a day, and by then they'd booked a call with another agency.
How a system handles it
A system watches the places leads arrive, the form and the inbox, and starts the moment one lands. It checks whether this is a new lead or someone you're already talking to, drafts a reply from what you've written down about your business, and sends the draft to the person who approves replies. They read it, change a line if needed, and approve it, so the lead gets a real answer as soon as someone has seen it, even away from a desk.
Questions
How do I measure my speed to lead?
Take your last few leads and note when each one wrote in and when a real reply went back. The gap for each is its speed to lead. Look at the slowest ones as well as the average, because those are the leads most likely to have gone somewhere else.
What's a good speed to lead for a service business?
I don't give one number, because the benchmarks that get passed around are hard to trace back to a study you can read. A better target comes from your own business: how many leads you get, what a client is worth to you, and how many you think a slow reply costs.
Related
- How do I approve email replies from Slack before they go out?Approving email replies from Slack, Telegram or Google Chat: what the built-in apps do, where an approval loop breaks, the send-once rule, and what I'd pick.
- The lead-response bottleneck: how fast to answer a new leadHow fast to answer a new lead, why a slow reply hands the decision to someone else, and a system that drafts from your rules for a person to approve.
- What do slow replies to leads cost you?Multiply your leads, the value of a won client, your close rate and your own estimate of leads lost to slow replies to see the revenue at risk.
- Human-in-the-loop approvalWhat human-in-the-loop approval means in an automation, which steps should wait for a person, and how an approval card makes sure an email sends once.
- A drafted reply to each lead, approved from my phone before it sendsAI drafts replies to lead emails that pass a junk screen, from my business facts. Risky asks get flagged, and nothing sends until I approve it on my phone.