The Ledger, Issue No. 4 · September 9, 2026
42 hours in a 2011 web-lead audit
A 2011 web-lead audit and a call-handling check for the dinner rush.
The stat
The audit behind Harvard Business Review's "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads" (Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, March 2011) tracked 2,241 companies and found the average one took 42 hours to respond to a new inquiry, while 23 percent never responded at all. Firms that made contact within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to have a real conversation with a decision maker as firms that waited just one hour longer. Two caveats we will say out loud: it measured web-form leads handled by sales teams, so read it as evidence about response speed in general, and the data is from 2011.
The idea
A caller who reaches voicemail during dinner service has to wait for a return call. A missed-call text-back can acknowledge the call once the number, consent and reply routing are ready. The team still has to answer the question.
Try this week
Call your own business during its busiest hour and listen to what a caller hears. If the call reaches voicemail, name the person who will call back and when. Test any automated reply with consent and reply routing in place before relying on it.