How to Reduce Lead Response Time to Increase Sales and Customer Satisfaction
Have you ever stopped to think that response time to a client can be decisive in winning or losing a deal?
Giving proper attention to requests is essential for offering exceptional service and building a solid relationship with your client.
Responding quickly and efficiently also helps create a strong brand perception.
Thus, when a lead is about to make a purchase decision, they are more likely to remember your brand instead of a competitor’s—precisely because of this communication bridge and proximity through quick responses.
The team’s focus always tends to boil down to growing the sales funnel.
Have you acquired enough customers this month?
What are your projections for next month?
Are your leads receiving enough outreach?
Your KPIs and end-of-month revenue generally depend on the answers to these questions.
Unfortunately, many companies often overlook lead response time, getting lost in the sea of concerns about future growth.
After all, the sales team is focused on building a healthy sales flow for the business, prioritizing the actual number of leads in the pipeline to generate end-of-month revenue.
However, lead response time is crucial if you want to focus on long-term growth.
The faster you respond to your leads, the more likely you are to guide them through the sales funnel, eventually leading to conversion.
When it comes to lead response time, remember: time is money.
According to research, there is a 21 times higher chance of qualifying your lead with a fast response time than by waiting more than 30 minutes.
The time window is short, and if you wait too long, you might end up losing a sale.
What is Lead Response Time?
Lead response time is the average time a sales team member takes to respond and follow up on a customer contact made through service channels.
It could be, for example, a phone call, an email, a message on social media, filling out a form, or even downloading content.
These actions indicate that the user is interested in the product or service and that they may be qualified as a lead ready to be guided to the next stages of the sales funnel.
This metric can become more realistic if you segment leads based on their source.
Additionally, you can score those who took a high-value action.
For example, a lead who requested a demo is potentially more important to follow up on than someone who subscribed to your newsletter.
This scoring will help qualify leads and prioritize those with the greatest potential.
Lead response time is also connected to customer satisfaction.
If the company takes too long to respond, the customer will feel they didn’t receive the proper attention and will become frustrated and dissatisfied.
Therefore, companies that value providing a remarkable customer experience must pay attention to response time.
But responding quickly isn’t enough.
You must also respond with quality, providing helpful answers that solve the client’s doubts and help them move forward in the sales funnel.
Is Response time the Same as SLA?
Customer service SLA (Service Level Agreement) is widely used in technology and service companies.
Response time is directly connected to SLA, but they are not exactly the same thing.
SLA means Service Level Agreement and can be understood as an agreement between the customer and the provider that ensures the quality of services provided, based on the initial demand from the hiring company.
The goal of this agreement is to guarantee that the customer will receive the contracted solution with the agreed-upon quality, timeline, and specifications.
The SLA can be developed in two ways: focusing on the customer or focusing on services.
In other words, one can refer to the company’s availability to keep operations running, and the other refers to customer communication (support).
When we talk about service SLA, it’s implicit that SLA includes response time.
Putting in writing that your company is available for technology may not be enough.
This should truly be part of the company culture.
Response time can also become part of company culture, representing a competitive advantage.
For example, many companies tend to close deals faster because they send quotes in a few minutes—not in days like other competitors.
This type of action should also be considered part of response time.
A customer service SLA can be decisive for attracting and retaining customers, but only if it is well-structured.
When creating an SLA, be sure to clarify all terms and describe the communication channels with the client.
Additionally, it’s important to set a time limit for service and define the main metrics to track performance.
What is the Importance of Response Time? 11 Facts and Statistics
If you still have doubts about the importance of response time, let’s look at facts and statistics that prove the magnitude of this metric in business.
According to recent research:
- 50% of leads will choose the organization that responded first;
- The chances of a lead advancing in the purchase process are 21 times higher if contacted within 5 minutes instead of 30 minutes;
- A 1-minute response time can generate 391% more conversions;
- 82% of consumers expect to receive responses within 10 minutes;
- 71% of customers made purchases based on the quality of the experience and service offered by the company;
- With delayed response times, companies experience a 15% increase in churn;
- After 5 minutes without a response, the chances of creating a connection with the customer and qualifying the lead drop by 80%;
- 24% of companies take more than 1 day to respond to a new lead—and 23% never respond to inquiries.
- Companies that contact a lead within the first hour have 7x more chances of qualifying the potential customer than an organization that responds in two hours;
- 30% of potential customers will turn to a competitor if you don’t respond quickly enough.
How to Calculate the Average Response Time?
Now that you understand what lead response time is and its importance for business success, let’s walk through how to calculate your company’s average response time and how to develop a sales strategy around it.
You can break the formula down into two steps:
Time and/or date of the new lead – Time and/or date of follow-up response = Response time
Sum of response time for all leads / Number of leads = Average response time
Response time can be measured in minutes, hours, or days, depending on your speed to respond.
It’s not complex to calculate; it’s just a simple average.
For example, let’s imagine a scenario where your company receives two customer requests in one day.
You took 4 hours to respond to one and 1 hour to respond to the other.
The calculation would be:
Response Time = (4+1) / 2 = 2.5 hours
Applying this formula in your sales strategy gives your brand a greater chance of converting new opportunities quickly.
If you plan to actively track lead response time, it’s essential to create a dashboard with these metrics, relating response time at each stage of the sales funnel.
As a starting point, set a target time that serves as a benchmark for service professionals.
Also, consider KPIs around lead response time.
What is the Ideal Response Time?
How many times have you filled out a form and received a confirmation reply like: “Thank you! We’ll be in touch soon.”
What exactly does “soon” mean?
By “pushing away” leads right after they show interest, you may be driving them to the competition.
The ideal response time for returning phone calls is 5 minutes or less.
According to a lead response management study by InsideSales (now XANT), the probability of engaging buyers within those 5 minutes is 10x higher than if you let 10 minutes pass.
If the response is via email—a channel with lower conversion rates than phone calls, according to the same study—the response speed must be even faster.
For instance, when leads sign up for a newsletter, 74% of subscribers expect an automatic welcome email.
A study from Harvard University shows that, on average, B2B sales teams take 42 hours to respond to a new lead, and 38% of those leads never receive a response.
Typically, it takes 3 or 4 days of direct communication before the first meeting happens.
This means that the longer you take to respond, the lower the chances are that the lead will reply.
The same study, conducted by the Harvard Business Review, also notes that companies that respond within an hour are almost 7x more likely to have meaningful interactions with decision-makers.
If you take too long, you might miss the chance to effectively sell to the right people.
However, the Harvard Business Review study found that only 37% of companies responded within the hour.
A survey conducted by researchers at Ricochet360 found that the average response time for web leads is 17 hours.
Since most companies do not respond within the first hour (or even the first day), it’s clear that most sales teams are leaving many business opportunities behind.
As the internet continues to influence our way of life, customers may begin to expect brands to offer near-instant responses across all channels.
One example of this could be service through WhatsApp, online chats, and chatbots.
How to Reduce Response Time?
Overall, lead response time varies depending on the industry, the size of the organization, and the type of lead.
For instance, you should respond to high-quality (most qualified) leads first and work through the queue from there.
After figuring out your company’s average response time, you may be wondering what the best way is to reduce that time and optimize customer service.
Here are some practical tips you can apply to your business:
1. Make the 5-Minute Rule Part of Your Team’s DNA
For a qualified lead to be approached quickly, your team must have all gears well-aligned.
Set the 5-minute rule as a goal for your SDRs or salespeople, and rely on your marketing team’s support to meet this mission.
2. Use Automation and Chatbots
Technology is your friend when it comes to reducing lead response time.
Use automation to send and distribute leads automatically to the sales team—and create automated alerts to follow up at the right time.
Take advantage of chatbots and online chats to give an instant response when a qualified lead contacts you.
➡️ Learn more: How to Use Chatbots to Improve Sales Automation
3. Develop a Sales Cadence
Leads won’t always respond to your first contact attempt.
And even when they do, the sale might not close at that initial stage.
For these reasons, it’s important to develop a sales cadence so your salespeople know which channels to use, when to reach out, and how many attempts should be made before discarding an opportunity.
4. Have a FAQ for Common Questions
It’s common for some leads to repeatedly ask the same questions, which can take up your salespeople’s time during negotiations.
Identify these common questions and provide the answers on the landing page where conversions happen.
It’s also possible to create a playbook so your team knows how to quickly respond to each situation.
5. Build an Omnichannel Strategy
Your sales funnel might be receiving leads from multiple channels: websites, social media, WhatsApp…
When considering lead response time, it’s essential to build an omnichannel strategy that can serve all leads with the same speed and quality.
6. Promote Constant Team Training
Marketing, sales, and customer service are highly dynamic areas.
There’s always new information to be shared, new channels to explore, new employees to train, or updates to align within processes.
Therefore, teams depend on constant training to maintain excellent service.
7. Log and Organize Information
Regardless of the software or CRM your company uses, it’s essential to log the information about each contact attempt or interaction with the lead to ensure speed in the sales process.
8. Create Sales Scripts to Streamline Communication
Sales scripts also help significantly reduce lead response times.
When the salesperson knows the focus of the call, the approach to take, and is armed with information, the process becomes much quicker.
9. Distribute Leads Automatically
This point is closely related to the second topic mentioned here about automation.
By using criteria for filtering and automatic lead distribution, you increase speed and reduce the chances of a lead being missed due to human error.
10. Build a Community Around Your Brand
Recent research shows that 67% of questions about your product or service can be answered by your own customers.
Not to mention its potential as a branding resource, creating a space where customers and prospects can interact (like a forum or community) can help address your leads’ questions more quickly.
11. Establish Service Metrics
Finally: we know that anything that cannot be measured cannot be managed.
Therefore, establishing service metrics and goals is essential if you want to optimize lead response time to increase sales and customer satisfaction.
Key Service Metrics to Adopt in Your Sales Cycle
Additionally, there are important metrics to consider when working to reduce your sales team’s response time.
You can start by considering these basic metrics:
- Average time (minutes/hours/days) to respond to leads
- Average number of interactions per lead (it’s unlikely that your team will contact the lead and close the sale on the first attempt)
- Average number of interactions required to convert a lead into a customer
- Average length of the sales cycle (days/weeks/months)
- Number of tests and meetings scheduled
- Number of contact attempts
- Sales Cycle Length
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Some deeper metrics focused on customer service operations (SAC):
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
- Customer Effort Score (CES)
- First Call Resolution (FCR)
- Average Wait Time (AWT)
- Abandonment Rate
Conclusion
If you want to qualify and convert leads, you need to contact them as quickly as possible.
However, it’s also important to remember that once a lead is in your pipeline, the battle isn’t won.
You still need to nurture leads with the right content, messaging, and cadence to close the deal.
To start making changes in your internal process, first analyze your sales team’s current practices.
How many leads does your team contact per day?
How long do they take to respond?
How many interactions are necessary to qualify a lead and close a sale?
All these insights will give you an idea of where you currently stand and the main gaps that need to be addressed in your organization.
From there, consider investing in the right technology to automate the process and ensure that your sales team doesn’t waste time clearing inboxes.
Rather than creating more work for your team, choosing the right technology platforms has the power to quickly qualify and score leads, distribute them to the team, and even respond to the lead in minutes.