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How fast should you respond to a lead?

The answer from the research: within 5 minutes. A study by InsideSales.com — covered by the Harvard Business Review — found that responding within 5 minutes makes you roughly 100× more likely to reach a prospect than waiting just 30 minutes. Enter your average response time below to see where you stand.

How long does it typically take your team to reply to a new inquiry?

What do the grades mean?

Grade Response time What the research says
A ≤ 5 minutes You're in the 5-minute window — roughly 100× more likely to reach a prospect than a 30-minute response. (InsideSales.com)
B 6 – 30 minutes Still meaningful reach, but your odds vs. a 5-minute response drop sharply. Leads contacted within 30 minutes are 21× more likely to be qualified than those reached after 24 hours. (InsideSales.com)
C 31 min – 1 hour You're losing a significant portion of high-intent inquiries. Most have already moved on or engaged a competitor who responded faster.
D 1 – 24 hours Leads contacted after 24 hours are 21× less likely to be qualified than those reached within 30 minutes. (InsideSales.com)
F > 24 hours At this delay, most high-intent prospects have found their answer elsewhere. The window closed well before your team called back.

Grade bands are anchored to verified research: InsideSales.com Lead Response Management Study (cited by Harvard Business Review, Oldroyd et al., 2011).

How to reliably respond within 5 minutes

The gap between where most businesses are and the 5-minute window isn't a staffing problem — it's a systems problem. A human team can't monitor every channel around the clock. An AI agent can.

The free First-Response Drafter is a paste-into-chat skill you can use right now: drop any new inquiry into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Copilot and get a fast, on-brand reply in seconds. No signup required.

When you're ready to automate it entirely — so every missed call, form submission, and after-hours inquiry gets a reply the moment it lands — the Speed-to-Lead & Booking system covers every channel, 24/7.

Get the free skill → See the full system →