What do slow replies to leads cost you?
Slow replies cost you the revenue from leads who go cold before you answer. This tool multiplies your leads a month by what a won client is worth, your close rate and your own estimate of the share lost to slow replies. I add no industry benchmark, so the figure is only as good as that estimate.
What slow replies put at risk
Your own estimate puts $7,200 of revenue at risk each month from slow replies.
Over a year, that comes to $86,400. The share lost is your own guess, so try a lower and a higher one to see the range.
| Leads a month | 30 |
|---|---|
| × Average value of a won client | $8,000 |
| × Share of leads you close | 20% |
| × Share lost to a late reply, your estimate | 15% |
| = Revenue at risk each month | $7,200 |
| × Twelve months = revenue at risk each year | $86,400 |
If that figure is worth a closer look, I can go through where your new leads wait for a first reply, and what it would take to answer them sooner.
How this is calculated
- Leads a month times the share you lose to slow replies, divided by a hundred, gives the leads lost each month.
- Times your close rate, divided by a hundred, gives the clients those leads would have become.
- Times the average value of a won client gives the revenue at risk each month.
- Times twelve gives the year.
Assumptions and limits
- The inputs are yours, and the starting values are an example.
- The share lost to slow replies is your own estimate. I don't supply one, and the result moves in step with it: double the share and the risk doubles.
- Your current reply time doesn't change the math. There is no decay curve that turns a reply time into a share of leads lost.
- There is no industry benchmark anywhere in the formula.
- It uses the value you enter for a won client and nothing more, so repeat work and referrals count only if you put them into that value.
Questions
Why is there no industry benchmark?
The studies people quote measured other markets in other years. Your own estimate of how many leads go cold while they wait is closer to your business than any average I could put here.
How do I estimate the share I lose to slow replies?
Go back through your last twenty leads, won or lost. Count the ones where your first personal reply went out after they had gone quiet, or who told you they had already picked someone. Multiply that count by five for the percent to enter. That is a fair first estimate.
Is all of this revenue I can win back?
It is your estimate of what slow replies cost. Faster replies may win back less, because the leads you lose to the wait may close at a lower rate than your average.
Does an automatic reply count?
A message that only says you got their note doesn't count. Leads judge the first answer to what they asked, so that is the reply time to measure. It can be drafted the moment the lead arrives and still go out under your name after you've read it.
Related
- 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.
- Speed to leadSpeed to lead is the time between a lead reaching you and a real reply going back. Why it matters, an example, and how a system shortens it.
- 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.
- Where do your leads leak?Twelve yes or no checks across the four places a lead dies: never recorded, answered, followed up or closed out. See your worst leak and what closes it.