Lead Response, Defined
Short, sourced definitions of the terms that decide who wins service leads — each with the benchmarks and deeper reading behind it.
Speed to Lead
Speed to lead is the time that passes between a prospect submitting an inquiry and the business making its first response. It is usually measured in minutes, and research consistently shows that responding within the first 5 minutes dramatically increases the odds of qualifying and winning the lead.
Read the full definition →Lead Response Time
Lead response time is the elapsed time between a new lead arriving and the business sending its first reply. Platforms typically track it as a median over a recent window — Yelp, for example, publishes each business’s median response time over the last 30 days — and both customers and ranking algorithms use it as a signal of reliability.
Read the full definition →Yelp Response Rate
Yelp response rate is the percentage of new customer messages a business replies to, calculated over the last 30 days and displayed publicly on the business’s Yelp page next to its response time. Every ignored message lowers the rate, and any reply — including a polite decline — counts toward it.
Read the full definition →Thumbtack Instant Reply
Thumbtack Instant Reply is a built-in Thumbtack feature that automatically sends a pro’s saved first message the moment a new lead arrives, so no lead sits without a response. It is part of Thumbtack’s messaging tools in the Pro app, is free to use, and sends the same templated message to every lead.
Read the full definition →Lead Qualification
Lead qualification is the process of determining whether a new inquiry is a genuine fit for a business — the right service, service area, timeline, and budget — before investing time in pursuing it. In home services it usually means asking a few scope questions in the first reply and politely declining requests the business doesn’t handle.
Read the full definition →Missed Lead Recovery
Missed lead recovery is the practice of re-engaging leads that never received a timely response or went silent after the first exchange, typically through timed follow-up messages or callbacks. Because most businesses respond slowly — and many never respond at all — recovering even a fraction of missed leads directly recovers marketing spend that was already paid.
Read the full definition →Get Started
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