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How to Calculate Lead Response Time

Apr 24th, 2019

This blog post was originally published by Rekener, now a Brainshark company.

Lead response time measures the average amount of time between when leads are created, and when they are first responded to by your sales team.

To calculate lead response time rate, you take the total amount of time between lead creation, and first response, for all the leads that were assigned to a rep, and divide that by the total number of leads responded to.

For example, let’s say you had 3 leads that were responded to on Tuesday.  The first one was responded to in 4 minutes.  The second lead was responded to in 6 minutes.  The third lead was responded to in 9 minutes.  To get lead response time for Tuesday, you would add 4 minutes + 6 minutes + 9 minutes = 19 minutes.  Then, divide that by the 3 leads to get 19 / 3 = 6.3 minutes average lead response time.

To measure lead response time with Salesforce data, you need to create a timestamp on your leads that tracks the first task associated with that lead that counts as a response (ie, the first call made to the lead).  Then, run a calculation that subtracts the Lead Created Time from the First Response Time for each lead.  

Next, divide the sum of lead response time for all leads in a period, by the number of leads that were responded to in that time.

This calculation can be really hard to pull off in Salesforce.  Sales Rep Scorecards can calculate lead response time automatically, without having to put any new fields into Salesforce.

To measure lead response time with HubSpot CRM data, you need to create a timestamp on your HubSpot Contacts that tracks the first engagement associated with that lead that counts as a response (ie, the first call made to the contact).  Then, run a calculation that subtracts the Contact Created Time from the First Response Time for each contact.  

Next, divide the sum of lead response time for all contacts in a period, by the number of contacts that were responded to in that time.

This calculation can be really hard to pull off in HubSpot.  Sales Rep Scorecards can calculate lead response time automatically, without having to put any new fields into HubSpot.

Want to calculate lead response time automatically? Sales Rep Scorecards gives companies better visibility into how their reps are following up with leads, and how leads convert into demos, opps and deals.  Try it out for free!

Sales Rep Scorecards automatically calculate lead response times and break them down by rep.  You can even see how many calls are being made into the leads assigned to each rep.

Lead conversion rate by sales rep

Sales Rep Scorecards can also show you trended information for your lead cohorts.  See how your conversion rates are trending over time.  You can also ensure that sales reps are consistently following up with leads over time, and how that relates to conversion.

Automatically calculate lead conversion rates over time

Looking for more sales metrics know-how? Our comprehensive Sales Metrics Glossary will show you how to calculate 30 critical KPIs using CRM data.