Lead response time
The time between a lead arriving and a real person making meaningful contact with that customer.
Use this definition in team training or when clarifying a sales note.
Definition
Lead response time is measured from the moment a lead lands to the first genuine human contact: a live call, a personal text or a written reply that answers what the customer asked. An automated acknowledgment is not a response, though many reporting tools count it as one.
Measure it in business hours and in all hours, and look at the slowest leads as well as the median. Teams that measure it honestly usually find their real response time is considerably longer than the one on their dashboard.
Why it matters
Customers who fill in a web form are usually contacting several companies at once, and attention tends to go to whoever answers first with something useful. Because the measure is easy to game with auto-replies, a manager should check it against actual first contact rather than trusting the dashboard. Speed to lead is the practice this number measures.