Lead response time: what the Harvard Business Review study really says

The article “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads”, by James B. Oldroyd, Kristina McElheran and David Elkington, appeared in the March 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review. It is based on two separate pieces of work.

The first is an audit of 2,241 US companies, to which the authors sent a test enquiry via their website. 37% responded within an hour, 16% between one and 24 hours, 24% after more than 24 hours, and 23% never responded. Among the companies that responded within 30 days, the average response time was 42 hours.

The second piece of work covers 1.25 million enquiries received by 29 B2C companies and 13 B2B companies in the United States. Companies that tried to contact the prospect within an hour of their enquiry were nearly seven times as likely to “qualify” the lead as those that tried an hour later, and more than 60 times as likely as those that waited 24 hours or longer.

The word “qualify” has a precise meaning here: the authors define it as having a meaningful conversation with a decision-maker. It does not mean a closed sale.

Several limits follow from the text itself: the data is American, it concerns enquiries sent online and not phone calls, and it was published in 2011. The article’s author information also presents one of the authors, David Elkington, as CEO of InsideSales.com: this link with a private company does not invalidate the figures, but the study cannot be read as research independent of any commercial interest. Nothing allows a coefficient to be derived from it that would apply as it stands to a French SME.

The authors put forward three reasons: enquiries collected once a day in the sales management software instead of being handled continuously, sales reps focused on their own prospecting rather than on incoming enquiries, and lead allocation rules based on geography or on fairness between salespeople.

In a small business, the causes take other forms: messages listened to at the end of the day, nobody designated to call back, incomplete contact details, or a callback that comes at the wrong time for the prospect. Each of these can be fixed through organisation.

Set a target time that you can genuinely meet, for example within half a day, rather than an ideal target that nobody respects. Designate who calls back, at what times of day, and who takes over in case of absence.

Before dialling, reread the request: a callback that starts with “how can I help you?” makes the prospect repeat themselves. If nobody answers, leave a short message with your name and the reason for calling, then plan a second attempt at another time of day. Record each attempt and its outcome, so that you know where each request stands.

Finally, measure your actual response time over a few weeks: time of the request, time of the first attempt, time of the first real conversation. This record shows whether the delay comes from the volume of requests, the team’s working hours or the way requests are allocated, and therefore tells you what to fix first.

The callback clock only starts running if you know who to call back. A missed call with no message, or a message with no number, leaves you nothing to work with. Call answering, whether human or automated, must therefore at the very least collect the name, the number, the subject of the request and the best time to call back.

Alyas answers the phone 24 hours a day from the information you provide, collects the caller’s contact details, transfers the call to your number if the caller asks, and puts a transcript and a summary of each call in your customer area. So you call back already knowing what the prospect expects. The free ten-day trial, with no credit card required, lets you measure your own callback times.