What is a good lead response time?

Under five minutes is excellent; under an hour is the minimum. Research found companies replying within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify a lead than those replying an hour later.

Does replying fast matter for B2B leads too?

Yes. The Harvard Business Review research covered both B2C and B2B companies, and buyers in both often contact several suppliers at once.

How can a small team reply to leads 24/7?

Use an assistant that sends an instant, useful first reply on WhatsApp or email, asks qualifying questions and offers a booking, then hands the conversation to a person.

Is an automatic reply enough?

A generic 'we got your message' email is not. The first reply should answer the question or move the conversation forward, for example by offering a time to talk.

Reply to every lead

How fast should a business reply to a new lead?

By Aman · Fruit of Summers · Updated 21 Oct 2026

Short answer

Reply within five minutes if you can, and always within the hour. A Harvard Business Review study of 2,241 companies found that firms contacting a lead within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify it than firms that waited even one hour longer, and over 60 times more likely than those that waited a day.

The short answer

Aim to reply in under five minutes, and never let a new enquiry wait more than an hour. After that, the chance of a real conversation drops fast.

What the research says

In 2011, Harvard Business Review published an audit of 2,241 US companies. Each one was sent a test enquiry through its website. The findings still hold up:

Only 37% replied within an hour.
The average reply time was 42 hours (among companies that replied at all within 30 days).
Companies that replied within an hour were nearly 7 times more likely to qualify the lead (have a meaningful conversation with the decision maker) than companies that replied even an hour later.
Compared with companies that waited 24 hours or more, they were over 60 times more likely to qualify the lead.

The reason is simple: most buyers enquire with two or three businesses at once. The first one to reply usually gets the call.

Why most businesses are slow

It is rarely laziness. The usual causes are:

Leads arrive after hours. Evening and weekend enquiries wait until someone is back at a desk.
Too many inboxes. WhatsApp, website forms, Instagram DMs, phone and email all land in different places.
Nobody owns the first reply. Sales assumes marketing has it; marketing assumes sales does.
The first reply needs information. Price, availability or a brochure, so it waits until someone can look it up.

How to reply in minutes without hiring

Send an instant, useful first message. Not "we received your enquiry", but a reply that answers the question and asks the next one.
Qualify in the same conversation. Ask what they need, when, rough budget or size, and location. One question at a time.
Offer a booking straight away. A link to a 15-minute slot turns a warm lead into a meeting before they talk to anyone else.
Hand over to a person with context. Your team should pick up a conversation that has already started, not a cold form.
Measure it. Track median time to first reply, by channel and by hour of day. What gets measured gets faster.

This is what an AI lead-response assistant does: it replies on WhatsApp or email within a minute, 24/7, asks your qualifying questions, scores the lead and books the call. A person still makes every decision that matters.

Try it on yourself

The fastest way to understand it is to be the lead. Our live demo at fruitofsummers.com/#demo lets you describe your business, play your own customer and watch the assistant reply.

Source

Harvard Business Review, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads (Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, March 2011), as summarised by SmartCompany.