How fast do you answer a new enquiry?
In the best-known study on this, the average business took 42 hours to reply
Cristian Lascu
October 01, 2026
Think about the last time you needed someone for a job. A plumber, an electrician, an accountant. You probably sent the same message to three or four of them.
Who got the work?
Most of the time it's the one who answered first. Price and reviews still matter, but by the time the others got back to you, you'd already booked someone.
I was reminded of this while watching a video by Nick Saraev this week. He was talking about AI services where demand is bigger than supply right now, and he named three. Speed to lead. Lead generation through content and ads. And outbound systems that go and find new prospects for you.
The first one stayed with me. It's the easiest of the three to check, and the research says most businesses are slower at it than they think.
What speed to lead is
It's the time between someone first getting in touch with your business and getting a real answer from you. They can fill in your form, click your ad, send a WhatsApp, or ring and get your voicemail.
It sounds too simple to need a name. It got one because so few businesses do it well.
What the research found
The study everyone quotes is a Harvard Business Review piece from 2011 called "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads." The researchers sent enquiries to 2,241 US companies and timed how long each one took to answer.
A bit over a third replied within an hour. Nearly a quarter never replied at all. The average was 42 hours.
The same researchers also looked at more than a million leads. Companies that got back to people within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify the lead than companies that waited just one hour longer. Against those that waited a day or more, it was over sixty times.
I'd take the exact numbers with a pinch of salt as the study is rather old (more than fiteen years) and only covers US firms. But I can't think of anything since 2011 that has made people more patient.
Saraev also quoted a 60% revenue lift in his video.
Why it happens
Nobody decides to ignore enquiries. It just happens.
The form lands in an inbox nobody opens until the evening. The owner is with a client, on site, or driving. The message arrives at eight on a Friday. Someone plans to call back first thing Monday, and they do.
By Monday the person has booked someone else.
You never hear about it. On your side it looks like a lead that went cold. On theirs, you weren't there when they needed you.
What a good reply looks like
It comes within minutes, at any hour. And it's a real reply, which means more than "thanks, we'll be in touch."
A good one:
answers the obvious questions straight away: what you do, a rough price, when you're free
asks two or three questions to see if it's a fit
lets them book straight into a free slot in your calendar
follows up if they go quiet, more than once, because plenty of people need a second nudge
hands the serious ones to a human immediately, with a short summary so nobody has to ask twice
Five years ago that meant paying someone to sit by the phone. Today it's work AI does well, as long as it's built properly and knows when to hand over to a human. Last week's issue was about that part, if you missed it.
Try this on your own business
It's free and takes one evening.
Fill in your own contact form on a weekday evening, from an email address your team won't recognise. Time the reply. Then read it as if you were the customer.
Call your business number after hours and listen to what a caller hears.
Open last month's enquiries and count how many got a real reply within the hour.
Be ready for at least one answer you don't like.
And the other two?
Content, ads and outbound are all worth doing. They bring more people in, and good systems for them are in demand for a reason.
They also pour those people into whatever process you already have. If your replies take a day, twice as many leads mostly means twice as many lost. I'd fix the reply first and turn up the volume after.
One warning if you're in Germany or anywhere else in the EU. Scraping personal data and sending unsolicited marketing email, even to businesses, is tightly restricted here. Check the rules before you build anything that sends at scale. It's a lot cheaper than a letter from a lawyer.
If you'd like this built for you
This is most of what my customer-facing agent does. Every enquiry gets a reply within a minute, day or night. It books into your calendar, follows up, and passes the urgent ones straight to you.
If you want to know what your current reply time is costing you, book half an hour with me and we'll look at it with your own numbers.
Or just run the test and reply with what happened. I'm curious what you find.
The One Thing
Leads lost to slow replies don't show up anywhere. They just go quiet. In the best-known study on this, the average reply took 42 hours, and companies that answered within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify the lead. Before you spend money getting more enquiries, find out how fast you answer the ones you already get.
Answer first. Then grow.
What I'm Thinking About This Week
How often businesses go looking for more leads before checking what happens to the ones they already have. More leads cost money. Faster replies mostly need something that's still awake at eight on a Friday.
Reply to this email with one of:
You ran the test. How long did your own reply take?
What happens today when someone contacts your business at 8pm on a Friday?
How many enquiries last month never got an answer?
What resonated? What did I get wrong? Hit reply: I read everything and I'm building this with you and with your input.
P.S. The toolkit, in the order I would use it: Scout → Visibility Audit → GEO/AEO Audit Checklist → How to Get Cited by AI → SEO Strategy Playbook → Title & Meta Audit → Sovereign Idea Workflow. All free.
P.P.S. Know someone who keeps saying they need more leads? Forward this. Faster replies might get them further first. They can subscribe at thesovereigntechnologist.com.
That’s all for this week.
See you next Thursday.
