How fast do you need to answer a new lead? Some of the most quoted numbers online trace back to nothing at all. These are the ones that hold up, each with the original study, how it was done, and who paid for it.
The best-known study in this field tracked when sales teams called web leads, and what happened. Most of the damage is done before half an hour has passed.
higher odds of reaching a web lead by phone when the first call came within 5 minutes instead of at 30 minutes.
Lead Response Management Study, 2007higher odds of the lead qualifying, agreeing to take the next step, when called within 5 minutes instead of at 30.
Lead Response Management Study, 2007lower odds of reaching the lead when the first call slipped from 5 minutes to just 10.
Lead Response Management Study, 2007About this source: James Oldroyd, then at MIT, with InsideSales.com, a company that sells lead-calling software. Three years of call records from six companies on InsideSales.com's own system: over 15,000 web leads and over 100,000 call attempts. Phone calls only, and it did not measure closed sales. Read it.
Harvard Business Review sent inquiries to more than two thousand companies and timed the replies. The ones that answered inside an hour were in a different league.
as likely to qualify a lead when a company tried to reach it within an hour as when it tried even an hour later.
Harvard Business Review, 2011About this source: James Oldroyd (Brigham Young University), Kristina McElheran (Harvard Business School) and David Elkington (InsideSales.com). An audit: test inquiries sent to the websites of 2,241 US companies, with every reply timed. Qualifying a lead meant reaching a decision maker for a real conversation. Read it.
Two separate audits, done the same way: send a real-looking inquiry through a company's own website and wait. Both found the same problem.
was the average first response among the companies that did reply within 30 days.
Harvard Business Review, 2011of 9,538 US companies never responded to a test lead sent through their own website form.
InsideSales.com Lead Response Report, 2014was the typical (median) wait for a first phone call, among the companies that called back at all.
InsideSales.com Lead Response Report, 2014of those 9,538 companies ever called the lead at all. The rest sent an email, or nothing.
InsideSales.com Lead Response Report, 2014About this source: InsideSales.com's research team. The company sells lead-response software. A secret-shopper test in 2013: test leads submitted through the website forms of 14,061 US companies during business hours, every call and email recorded. 9,538 had a working form. Read it.
Most of the older research comes from sales teams. These come from where plumbers, roofers and HVAC companies actually get hired.
more likely to get hired, for pros on Thumbtack who respond to a new lead within 30 minutes rather than within three hours.
Thumbtack, 2025of high-intent web inquiries to service businesses arrive on evenings and weekends.
Blazeo Speed-to-Lead Benchmark, 2026of those service businesses (24.6%) respond slowly or not at all after hours.
Blazeo Speed-to-Lead Benchmark, 2026Google ranks Local Services Ads partly on how fast you answer
Google lists your responsiveness to customer inquiries among the things that decide where your Local Services Ad shows, says missed calls may count against you, and includes your average response time in your profile's quality.
Google Local Services Ads Help: About ad rankingsAbout this source: Thumbtack's own marketplace data, shared by its co-founder and CEO, Marco Zappacosta. Hiring rates of home service pros on Thumbtack, by how fast they answered a new lead. Read it.
About this source: Blazeo, a company that sells lead capture and answering services. An analysis of how 573 companies in six service industries respond to new leads, including what their leaders report. Read it.
When a business calls a new web lead back, that is, to the person, a call from a number they don't know. It is exactly the kind of call people have learned to ignore. A text waits for them instead.
of calls from unidentified numbers go unanswered, even when a legitimate business is calling.
Hiya State of the Call, 2024About this source: Hiya, a company that sells caller identification to phone carriers and businesses. A survey of more than 12,000 consumers in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and Spain. Read it.
You will see these on plenty of pages about response time. We went looking for where each one came from and couldn't find a study that says it, so they are not here. We have left the numbers themselves out, too, so this page doesn't spread them further.
That most buyers go with whichever business answers first.
The figure usually attached to it is credited to the 2007 study above. It is not in that study, and we could not trace it to any other.
That replying within a minute multiplies conversions several times over.
It comes from a sales software company's marketing in the early 2010s, with no published method.
That a lead loses most of its value after five minutes.
No study here measured what a lead is worth. The 2007 study measured whether a phone call reached the person, and whether they qualified.
That the average business takes about two days to reply.
The exact figure usually given is credited to different companies and different years, depending on the page. The 42 hours above is the one with a published study behind it.
Home service figures sourced to “platform data” or “industry surveys”.
Claims like most home service leads arriving after hours, or homeowners contacting several businesses at once, rarely name a study. Where a named source exists, as with Blazeo above, we used it.
Every study here points the same way, and the biggest drop comes in the first few minutes, long before most businesses reply.
A large share of inquiries arrive when the office is closed, which is exactly when many businesses go quiet.
A text reaches people who won't pick up an unknown number, and it's there when they look.
LeadsCoda answers new leads in under a minute, day or night, in your business's name, and keeps following up until they decide.
No credit card needed.
Checked against the original documents in October 2026. Most research on response time was paid for by companies that sell a fix for it, as we do, which is why each entry says who.
James Oldroyd, then at MIT, with InsideSales.com, a company that sells lead-calling software.
Three years of call records from six companies on InsideSales.com's own system: over 15,000 web leads and over 100,000 call attempts. Phone calls only, and it did not measure closed sales.
A copy of the original study page, saved in 2008. The study's own site no longer exists.
James Oldroyd (Brigham Young University), Kristina McElheran (Harvard Business School) and David Elkington (InsideSales.com).
An audit: test inquiries sent to the websites of 2,241 US companies, with every reply timed. Qualifying a lead meant reaching a decision maker for a real conversation.
InsideSales.com's research team. The company sells lead-response software.
A secret-shopper test in 2013: test leads submitted through the website forms of 14,061 US companies during business hours, every call and email recorded. 9,538 had a working form.
Thumbtack's own marketplace data, shared by its co-founder and CEO, Marco Zappacosta.
Hiring rates of home service pros on Thumbtack, by how fast they answered a new lead.
Google's own help page for Local Services Ads.
Google's description of what decides where a Local Services Ad appears.
A living help page. Read on October 9, 2026.
Blazeo, a company that sells lead capture and answering services.
An analysis of how 573 companies in six service industries respond to new leads, including what their leaders report.
Hiya, a company that sells caller identification to phone carriers and businesses.
A survey of more than 12,000 consumers in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany and Spain.