Speed to lead
Speed to lead is the time between a prospect first making contact (a call, form, chat or ad click) and the business responding in a way that starts a conversation.
Also called: lead response time, time to first contact
Speed to lead is a sales metric, not a telephony one. It measures how long a new inquiry waits before someone (or something) engages with it: returns the call, replies to the form, answers the chat. It is usually reported as a median or as the share of leads contacted within a target window such as five minutes or one hour.
The metric matters because a prospect who is still on the website or still has the phone in their hand is much easier to reach than one who has moved on to the next supplier. Long response times are one of the most common ways a business pays for a lead and then loses it.
It is distinct from speed to answer, which measures how quickly an inbound call is picked up. A business can answer every call in three seconds and still have a poor speed to lead if web forms sit unread until the next morning.