Speed to lead, when the lead is standing in your parking lot.
Speed to lead is a familiar idea from residential real estate and software sales: respond in five minutes and your odds of a conversation are dramatically better than at thirty. The specific numbers get quoted with more confidence than the underlying studies support, but the direction is not controversial, and anyone who has worked inbound recognises it.
What is worth adding is that a leasing call is a different and shorter clock than the one that research measured.
Why the clock is shorter here
Most speed-to-lead data is about web forms. Someone fills one out at their desk, then goes back to work. They are somewhat committed — they typed their details — and there is a natural window before they move on.
A drive-by leasing call is not that. The person is physically at the property, in a car, mid-errand, and they invested about four seconds in reading a phone number off a panel. They have no relationship with you and no reason to wait. And the substitute is not a competitor across the country — it is the next sign in the same center, or the same building listed by another broker on LoopNet.
There is also no artifact. A missed form fill still exists in a database. A missed call from a stranger who does not leave voicemail leaves nothing at all. You cannot follow up on it slowly, because you do not know it happened.
The realistic target
Not five minutes. Zero. The call should be answered when it rings, because that is the only response time that is actually available on an inbound call from a stranger.
That is not a standard a broker can hold personally. You are in a tour, in a car, in a meeting, at dinner. The point is not to try harder — it is that the number on the sign should belong to something that can hold it, and your cell cannot.
What speed buys you
Two things. The conversation happens while they are looking at the space, which is when they are most specific about what they want. And you get a callback number, which converts a one-time drive-by into something you can work on your own schedule.
After that, your own speed matters much less. You call back in an hour, or the next morning, from your own phone, knowing what they want. The urgent part was the pickup, not the callback.
$99/mo per listing. Cancel when it leases.
Questions brokers ask
How fast do I need to respond to a leasing inquiry?
Fast enough to be the first callback. A tenant looking at space calls several signs the same afternoon, and the first broker to call back gets to define what the caller is looking for. Being second is often the same as not responding.
Is speed to lead different in commercial real estate?
The clock is harsher, because the volume is lower. In residential or SaaS you get another lead tomorrow. On a single vacant suite, the caller who hung up may be the only real user that week.
What is a realistic response time?
Inside a minute is achievable if something answers the call and texts you the qualified ones. If you are working from voicemail, realistic is a few hours, and that is the gap.