If you run a small business, you already know the pattern. A message comes in while you are on a job, you plan to reply tonight, and by the time you do, the customer has hired someone else. There is some well-known research on how much this matters, along with a few reasons not to take it too literally.
The short version
- A study of 2,241 US companies found 37% replied to a web enquiry within an hour, while 23% never replied at all.12
- The average reply time among those who responded within 30 days was 42 hours.1
- A separate analysis of 1.25 million leads found that firms trying to make contact within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead as those trying an hour later.1
- The studies are from around 2011 and from the US, so treat them as direction rather than an exact forecast.
What the research found
The most cited work is “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads”, by James Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran and David Elkington, published in Harvard Business Review in 2011.34 The full article is behind a paywall, so the figures here come from published summaries that quote it directly.
The researchers sent a test enquiry to 2,241 US companies and timed the responses:12
| Time taken to respond | Share of companies |
|---|---|
| Within an hour | 37% |
| Within 1 to 24 hours | 16% |
| More than 24 hours | 24% |
| Never | 23% |
The second figure often quoted comes from a separate study of 1.25 million sales leads, received by 29 business-to-consumer and 13 business-to-business US companies. Firms that tried to contact potential customers within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead, meaning they had a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker, as those who tried even an hour later. They were also more than 60 times as likely as firms waiting 24 hours or longer.1
How much weight to give this
You will see far more dramatic numbers online, often with “five minutes” attached and credited loosely to Harvard or MIT. Be careful with those, because many of them cannot be traced to a primary source.
Even the figures above have clear limits:
- They are old. Customer habits have changed a lot since 2011.
- They are American, and come from larger firms running online advertising.
- They show a link, not proof of cause. Companies that reply fast may also be better run in other ways.
- Your trade may differ. Someone planning a kitchen may compare carefully for weeks, while someone with a burst pipe will ring the next number immediately.
Still, the direction makes sense to almost everyone who has tried to buy a service. The first person to reply clearly has an obvious advantage, and replying costs very little.
What this means for a small business
You are probably not ignoring customers on purpose. You are up a ladder, or with another customer. So the useful question is how to respond quickly without stopping work. These are our suggestions.
Send an instant acknowledgement
An automatic reply takes seconds to set up. A good one confirms you got the message, gives a realistic time for a proper reply, and offers a way to speed things up, such as a link to book a call. It does not replace a real reply, but it stops the customer wondering whether you exist.
Put everything in one place
Enquiries that arrive by email, web form, WhatsApp and voicemail are easy to lose. When they all land in one list, you can see at a glance what is waiting.
Reply with something useful
“Thanks, I will call you tomorrow” is better than silence. “Thanks, jobs like this usually cost between £X and £Y, and I can visit on Thursday” is far better. If you can send a quick priced quote from your phone, you skip a whole round of messages.
Chase what has gone quiet
Many enquiries die because nobody followed up, not because the customer said no. Set a reminder for a polite second message. Replying to someone who contacted you is ordinary customer service. Sending marketing has separate rules, which we cover in our guide to UK email marketing rules.
Measure your own numbers
Forget the US averages. Record when each enquiry arrived, when you first replied and whether you won the work. After a few months, your own data will tell you more about your business than any study can.
See how it works
Our lead generation software does these things in one list: an instant reply to every enquiry, a reminder when a lead goes quiet, and a clear view of which channels bring work you actually win. The live demo on that page shows it working, using sample data.
Sources
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Venture Harbour, How fast do marketing leads turn cold?, which quotes the Harvard Business Review article directly, accessed 7 November 2026. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
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CustomerThink, How fast are you?, a summary of the Harvard Business Review article, accessed 7 November 2026. ↩ ↩2
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James Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran and David Elkington, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, Harvard Business Review, March 2011, accessed 7 November 2026. Paywalled: we read the published summary only. ↩
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Brigham Young University ScholarsArchive, record of The Short Life of Online Sales Leads, accessed 7 November 2026. ↩
Lead generation
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