How does speed to lead work?
- Formula: speed to lead equals the timestamp of the first human contact attempt minus the timestamp the lead was created.
- Every lead source, from web forms to portals and ads, must write a creation time into the CRM.
- Alerts push new leads to whoever is on duty by SMS, Slack or a dialer queue the moment they arrive.
- The first attempt is logged as a call, text or email so the report reflects real contact, not just an automated reply.
- Report the median and the percentage under five minutes weekly, split by source and by hour of the day.
A worked example
A personal injury law firm in Atlanta paid for pay-per-click leads and called them back next morning. The CRM showed a median speed to lead of 14 hours and a contact rate under 30 percent. The firm added a remote intake desk covering 7am to 9pm and set an alert that rings the desk the moment a form lands. Median first contact dropped to four minutes during covered hours. Leads that used to say they had already signed with another firm now answer the phone while still on the website, and signed cases from the same ad spend rose noticeably.
Where does speed to lead show up in your tools?
HubSpot, Salesforce and Follow Up Boss all timestamp lead creation and first activity, so speed to lead can be built as a custom report. Dialpad and RingCentral integrations log the first call automatically, and GoHighLevel and Zapier can push instant alerts to whoever is on duty.
Common mistakes
- Counting the automated thank-you email as first contact, which hides the fact that no human called for a day.
- Measuring the average instead of the median, so a few weekend leads mask slow weekday responses.
- Buying more leads before fixing response time, which multiplies the waste rather than the revenue.
Why does speed to lead matter?
Leads decay fast: a form submitted at 2pm and answered at 9am tomorrow has usually been won by someone else. Speed to lead is the cheapest sales improvement available because it needs no new marketing spend, only someone whose job is to respond. Tracking it also shows exactly which hours and sources are being neglected.
How does AssistBPO handle speed to lead?
AssistBPO inbound lead response desks are staffed in your hours by employed, managed assistants whose first job is to reach every new lead within minutes and log the attempt in your CRM. The team lead reviews speed to lead by source in the weekly review. Callbacks are placed with lawful consent and do-not-call scrubbing.