The first hour of a lead

Most businesses put far more work into getting a lead than into answering one. The ad is tested, the landing page is tuned, the form is cut to three fields. Then the inquiry lands in an inbox and waits for someone to notice it. In 2011, Harvard Business Review published a study of 2,241 firms and how quickly they answered online leads. Firms that contacted a lead within an hour were 7 times as likely to qualify it as firms that took longer, and 60 times as likely as firms that waited 24 hours. The authors' summary was blunt: "Our research shows that most companies are not responding nearly fast enough." The reason is not mysterious. A person who fills in a form is interested now, and has probably filled in a few others. The first business that calls back gets the conversation; the rest get voicemail. The delay is rarely about effort. It is about plumbing. Leads arrive in too many places: a Google lead form, a Facebook form, the website, a missed call to the office line. Each lands somewhere different, and nobody sees them all. Nobody owns the first response. When a lead belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one, especially at twenty to seven on a Friday evening. Nobody knows when one slips. A lead that was never called does not complain. It quietly becomes someone else's customer. The fixes are just as unglamorous: Bring every lead source into one list, the moment it arrives. Alert a named person on the phone they carry, not an inbox they check at night. Text back a missed call straight away, so the caller knows they were heard. Flag any new lead still untouched after an hour, while it can still be saved. Record what happened to each lead, so next month's report says which ads brought customers, not just form fills. None of this needs a bigger budget. Before spending more to get leads, find out how long the ones you already have are waiting. For most businesses, closing that gap is the cheapest growth on offer.