The Ones That Hold Up

Harvard Business Review, March 2011 — “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads” (Oldroyd, McElheran, Elkington). The authors sent a test lead to 2,241 U.S. companies. Among companies that responded within 30 days, the average response time was 42 hours; 37% responded within an hour, and 23% never responded at all. Firms that tried to contact the lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as those that tried even an hour later, and more than sixty times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or more. Source: hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads.

Lead Response Management Study, 2007 — Dr. James Oldroyd (MIT) with InsideSales.com. Three years of data across six companies, more than fifteen thousand leads and one hundred thousand call attempts. In the study's own words: the odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times, and the odds of qualifying a lead drop 21 times. Note the word “odds” — the popular paraphrase “21× more likely” is not what the study says.

Velocify, “The Ultimate Contact Strategy,” 2012 — an analysis of roughly 3.5 million leads. A first call within one minute showed a 391% improvement in conversion rate; within 30 minutes, 62%; after 24 hours, 17%. Cite it as an improvement in conversion rate, not as “391% more sales.”

Google Local Services Help — Google lists “your responsiveness to customer inquiries and requests” among the factors that determine ad ranking, notes that missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness, and says a consistently fast response time could improve your ad's ranking. This is the only statement on this page that comes from a lead source itself. Sources: support.google.com/localservices/answer/7527305 and /answer/6224859.

Home-Service Specific Data

Invoca, 2023–2024 — Across thousands of analyzed calls, 27% of inbound calls to home-services businesses were not answered, and fewer than 3% of callers pushed to voicemail left a message.

ServiceTitan, 2022 — Across more than 3,000 trade businesses, a typical shop booked 42% of calls. Plumbing led at 43%, HVAC at 38%, garage door and water treatment at 31%. Shops with fewer than five technicians booked 24% of calls; shops with 25 or more booked 59%.

CallRail, 2025 — In a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, 78% said they had abandoned a business after an unanswered call, 21% immediately called another business, and 82% said they would call a competitor if you don't answer.

Housecall Pro, October 2025 — In a survey of 1,040 U.S. homeowners, nearly every homeowner said speed influences who they hire, and 53% said they were comfortable with AI handling their initial inquiry.

The Ones We Don't Use

“78% of customers buy from the company that responds first.” Usually attributed to a “Lead Connect” survey. No published methodology or original report exists that we could find, and independent statistics reviewers flag its origin as untraceable. The verified 78% is different: CallRail's consumer finding above about abandoning a business after an unanswered call.

“35–50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first.” Traces to a 2010 vendor blog post that names no study, author, or method.

“85% won't call back,” “80% don't leave voicemail,” “$126,000 a year lost.” Widely repeated; no primary source we could locate. If a number on a competitor's page has no link, assume it belongs on this list.

  • Quote the researcher's wording, including “odds” and “conversion rate.”
  • Name the year. A 2007 finding is still useful; pretending it is new is not.
  • Link the source. If you can't, don't use the number.

What Lead Dominator Does With This

The research says the customer is still choosing for a few minutes, and that most businesses miss that window by hours. Lead Dominator is built to text the customer and ring your phone within ten seconds of the lead reaching it, then connect you when you press 1. We measure that time from the moment the lead reaches us and publish it when there is enough live data to be honest about it — not before.