Speed to lead is how fast you make real contact with a new lead after they reach out. The research is older and not specific to contractors, but it points one way: companies that respond within minutes reach and qualify far more leads than companies that take hours. For a contractor’s office, that means a response target measured in minutes, a plan for after-hours leads and a follow-up routine that doesn’t stop at one voicemail.
Below: what the studies actually found (and what they didn’t), then a playbook you can put to work this week.
Speed to lead is the time between a lead reaching out and your first real response. The clock starts when the web form is submitted, the call goes to voicemail, the text arrives or the marketplace lead email lands. It stops when someone from your company tries to reach them. The number that matters most is how long it takes to actually talk.
An automatic “thanks, we got your request” email is useful, but it doesn’t count. Speed to lead is about a person reaching a person.
Track two times:
Two studies sit behind most of the speed-to-lead numbers you see online. Both are worth reading in the original, because their numbers often get repeated without the context.
In “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads,” James Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran and David Elkington reported two pieces of research. First, they audited 2,241 U.S. companies by sending each one a web lead and timing the response:
Among the companies that responded within 30 days, the average response time was 42 hours.
Second, they looked at 1.25 million sales leads received by 29 business-to-consumer and 13 business-to-business companies in the U.S. Firms that tried to contact a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that tried even an hour later. They were more than 60 times as likely to qualify it as companies that waited 24 hours or longer. In the study, “qualify” meant having a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker.
This is where the often-quoted “100 times” comes from. Dave Elkington of InsideSales.com and Dr. James Oldroyd, listed as a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, analyzed three years of data from six companies: more than 15,000 leads and more than 100,000 call attempts. They reported that:
Keep three limits in mind. Neither study is about contractors. Both measure contacting and qualifying leads, not signed contracts, and the 2007 study says it did not address close rates. And the 2007 study came from a sales software company and was presented at a marketing conference, not published in a peer-reviewed journal.
You’ll also see other figures online, like the share of buyers who go with the first company to respond. We couldn’t trace those to an original study, so we left them out. What holds up is the direction: the longer a lead waits, the harder it is to reach, and plenty of companies wait far too long.
A homeowner with a leaky roof or a kitchen plan doesn’t always contact just one company. If they fill out forms on three websites, the first company to call gets the conversation the other two don’t. That first call is your chance to understand the project, set expectations on price range and timing, and book the visit before anyone else does.
Timing also works in your favor right after a form goes in. The person just thought about the project, and their phone is probably within reach. Pew Research Center’s 2025 survey found that 98% of U.S. adults own a cellphone and 91% own a smartphone, so a quick call or text reaches almost everyone.
The flip side: every hour a lead waits, you’re paying for marketing that a faster competitor gets to use.
No study gives a single target for contractors, so set one your office can hit every day. Here’s a starting point based on the research above:
Make one person responsible for new leads during each part of the day, with a named backup for lunch, site visits and days off. “Whoever sees it first” usually means nobody sees it for an hour.
People fill out forms whenever the project crosses their mind, including nights and weekends. You don’t have to answer at 10 p.m., but you do need a plan:
Call first. A conversation answers more questions in two minutes than a dozen texts, and it’s the fastest way to book the estimate. If they don’t answer:
A simple text works: “Hi [first name], this is [your name] with [company]. I got your request about the [project]. Is now a good time for a quick call, or is later today better?”
A few ground rules for texting leads. Ask for permission to text on your web form. Text from a company number, not a personal cell, so the history stays with the business. Keep it short, and stop texting anyone who asks you to.
Plenty of leads won’t pick up on the first try. A written cadence keeps follow-up from depending on anyone’s memory. Here’s a simple two-week version to adapt:
Stop when someone says no, and record why. Count every call, text and email on the lead, so you can see who was worked and who slipped through.
You can’t improve a number you don’t see. Track these every week, by lead source:
Then test yourself the way the HBR researchers did: fill out your own web form on a weekday afternoon, again on a Saturday, and time what happens. If you run ads, compare each source’s booked-visit rate with its cost. A slow response can make a good source look bad.
Speed only pays off if the next steps are tight too. Once the visit is booked, see how to run a strong in-home sales visit, and price the job on your real costs with markup vs. margin in mind.
Minutes, not hours. A practical target is a first call within five minutes of a web form or missed call during business hours, and no later than an hour. In the HBR research, firms that tried to reach leads within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify them as firms that tried even an hour later.
It comes from the 2007 InsideSales.com/MIT Lead Response Management Study, which reported that the odds of contacting a lead drop 100 times when you call at 30 minutes instead of 5. It used data from six companies and wasn’t about contractors, so treat it as a strong signal, not a promise.
Call first, because a conversation books the visit fastest. If they don’t answer, leave a short voicemail and send a text right away so they have your name and number. Ask permission to text on your web form, and stop if someone asks you to.
The studies here don’t give a number for contractors. A written cadence of five or six touches over two weeks, mixing calls, texts and emails, keeps good leads from slipping through without pestering anyone. Stop when someone says no.
Send an automatic reply right away that says when you’ll call, include a booking link if you have one, and make overnight leads the first calls of the next business day.
Speed to lead is the time between a lead reaching out and your first real response. The clock starts when a web form is submitted, a call goes to voicemail, a text arrives or a marketplace lead email lands, and it stops when someone from your company tries to reach them. An automatic “we got your request” email doesn’t count. Track time to first attempt and time to first contact.
The research points that way, but it measures reaching and qualifying leads, not signed contracts, and the 2007 study says it didn’t address close rates. In the 2011 HBR research, firms that tried to contact a lead within an hour were more than 60 times as likely to qualify it as firms that waited 24 hours or longer. Every hour a lead waits, you’re paying for marketing a faster competitor gets to use.
Make one person responsible for new leads during each part of the day, with a named backup for lunch, site visits and days off. Call first, and text right after a voicemail. Send an automatic reply to after-hours leads and make them the first calls of the morning. With the ECHOPS Phone & texts add-on, the ECHOPS team can turn on speed-to-dial for new form leads.
Track five numbers every week, by lead source: median time to first attempt, median time to first contact, contact rate, booked-visit rate and follow-ups per lead. Then fill out your own web form on a weekday afternoon and again on a Saturday, and time what happens. If you run ads, compare each source’s booked-visit rate with its cost, because a slow response can make a good source look bad.
In ECHOPS, leads from your website forms, Google Ads lead forms, CallRail and forwarded Angi, Houzz and Thumbtack lead emails land on one lead board, and each lead’s follow-ups are counted for you. The Phone & texts add-on ($79/mo on Solo and Crew, included in Company) gives you a business number for calls and texts, with speed-to-dial on new form leads, which the ECHOPS team turns on for your number. Automations run from a built-in list on every plan, and Crew and Company can add their own when-then rules. Clients can also book an estimate visit from your online booking page.
Posts are general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.
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