Response Time: The Most Overlooked Sales Metric

Many sales teams evaluate performance by closing rate, yet closing rate is heavily influenced by a metric rarely measured: response time to a new lead.

A lead responded to within the first few minutes has a far higher chance of closing than one responded to hours later — regardless of how good the pitch is.

Measuring response time requires clear timestamps: when the lead came in, and when sales first replied. Without a CRM recording both, response time stays a guess.

Once response time is measured, the next step is setting an SLA and triggering an automatic reminder before the SLA is missed — not after.