What is speed to lead?
The business that replies first usually wins the job
Speed to lead is how quickly you respond to a new inquiry. It matters because people who reach out to a business are usually reaching out to several.
In a 2011 Harvard Business Review study of 2,241 US companies, the average response to an online inquiry took 42 hours, and 23% never replied at all. Firms that tried to reach a lead within an hour were about seven times more likely to qualify it than those that waited longer.
A lead sitting in an inbox you check at the end of the day is a lead your competitor calls first. Lead alerts put it on your phone while the customer is still deciding.
How it works
From a chat to your phone in seconds
The assistant takes their details
It asks for a name, a phone number or email, and what they need, one question at a time, and never promises a callback without a number to call.
You get a text and an email
Straight away, at any hour: who they are, how to reach them, what they need, where and when. Emergencies are marked urgent.
Tap "I've got this"
One tap from the alert stops the reminders. If nobody taps it during opening hours, you're reminded after 5 minutes, and your backup contact is told after 15.
What it does
Alerts that respect your hours and still catch emergencies
Text and email
Send alerts to a phone, an email address or both. The email's reply-to is the customer, so you can answer from your inbox.
Quiet overnight
Out of hours you still get the first alert, but reminders wait until you open. Choose to be woken for emergencies if your business takes emergency calls.
A backup contact
Add a second phone or email. If a lead is still unanswered 15 minutes after the first alert during opening hours, they're told too.
Know when alerts fail
Home warns you if leads have nowhere to go, or if alerts couldn't be delivered, instead of letting leads go quiet.
Send leads to your other tools
Add a webhook and each new lead is sent to Zapier, Make, your CRM or your own system as signed JSON, with retries if it doesn't get through.
Junk stays out
Mark a spam lead as junk and it stops reminders and stays out of your counts and your results.
In practice
An evening inquiry, start to finish
- Half my outlets stopped working. Can someone come tomorrow?
- I can get that booked in. What's your name and the best number to reach you?
Asks for details before promising contact
- Sam Carter, (555) 010-0123. We're in Oak Park.
- New lead (Bright Spark Electric): Sam Carter (555) 010-0123 / half the outlets stopped working, Oak Park, tomorrow / Got it: [link]
Sent right away; reminders wait for opening time
What it won't do
What lead alerts don't cover
Alerts get the lead to you fast. What happens next is yours.
- It doesn't connect natively to HubSpot, Salesforce or other CRMs. Use the webhook, directly or through Zapier or Make.
- You can't reply to the customer from the dashboard. Call or email them yourself.
- It doesn't export leads to a spreadsheet yet.
- It sends one webhook per website, for new leads only.
- Text alerts need a text message provider set up on the account before they're sent.
Questions
Speed to lead questions
What is speed to lead?
The time between someone contacting your business and you responding. Faster responses win more of those customers, because most people contact more than one business and go with whoever gets back first.
Why is speed to lead important?
In Harvard Business Review's 2011 study, firms that tried to contact a lead within an hour were about seven times more likely to qualify it than those that waited longer, yet the average response took 42 hours.
How fast will I get the alert?
Straight away. The alert goes out the moment the conversation has a name, a way to reach them and what they need.
Will it wake me up at night?
Only if you ask it to. Out of hours you get the first alert but no reminders until you open. If you take emergency calls, you can choose to be reminded about urgent leads overnight.
Can new leads go into my CRM?
Yes, through the webhook. Paste a URL from Zapier, Make, your CRM or your own system, and each new lead is sent as signed JSON with retries. There's a button to send a test lead.
What is lead response time?
Another name for speed to lead: how long it takes you to respond to a new inquiry. Your dashboard shows which leads are still waiting on you.
Keep exploring
Other features
- Answers from your websiteReplies from your own pages, and says when it doesn't know.
- BookingsYour booking page or Google Calendar, right in the chat.
- Handoff to youPasses the conversation to you when a person should answer.
- Test and correctCheck its answers before customers see them.
- ResultsWhat it adds, measured against visitors who never saw it.
- Chat widget and pageA chat bubble for your site and a link to share anywhere.