The numbers behind the wait.

The core finding

Which business wins when multiple firms receive the same enquiry?

The business that answers first wins the large majority of the time. Across two decades of lead response studies, one pattern holds, and the advantage decays within minutes of the enquiry landing.

Note on the 21x figure: this comes from platform data analysing millions of contact attempts, not a randomised controlled trial. We treat it as a strong directional finding that has been reproduced for almost twenty years, rather than a precise law. We use the cautious end of these ranges everywhere on the site.

The cost of the wait

How quickly do UK trade businesses respond to online enquiries?

Speed is such an advantage because almost nobody is fast. The average business takes the better part of two days to respond, and a large share never reply at all.

Follow up

How many follow-up attempts does it take to win a job?

Winning the job is rarely about the first message alone. Most businesses give up after one attempt, but the research points to six or more contacts before a lead goes cold.

Our calculator

How does the First Knock Lost Lead Calculator work?

The Lost Lead Calculator on our site turns these findings into a pound figure, conservatively. Here is exactly how it works, so you can judge it for yourself.

It works from a 50 percent benchmark, the close rate AI appointment setters consistently reach on warm inbound leads, and compares it to your current conversion rate. The gap between the two, multiplied by your monthly enquiries over a year and your average job value, is the revenue walking out the door. The recovery figure is then capped by the spare capacity you tell us you have, so it never assumes you can take on more work than you actually can. It is an estimate to start a conversation, not a quote. Your discovery call replaces every assumption with your real numbers.

Sources

Where these numbers come from.

• MIT and InsideSales, Lead Response Management Study (Professor James Oldroyd), 2007. The five minute response window and the 21x and 100x figures.
• Harvard Business Review, “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads” (Oldroyd, Elkington and Trailer), 2011. Audit of 2,241 US companies. Average response time, the share never contacted, and the decay in lead quality.
• Lead Connect, 2024. The 78 percent first responder figure.
• Velocify, lead response and follow up research, reported by Forbes. The average number of follow up attempts versus the optimal.
• Home services and trade lead timing benchmarks, 2024 to 2026. The share of enquiries arriving after hours.

These are third party studies, not our own. Where a figure is platform or vendor data rather than peer reviewed research, we have said so above. We will update this page as we gather our own results across the firms we work with.