A race you can’t win by hand
Most buyers do their real searching in the evening — after the workday, when you’re at dinner, in a showing, or asleep. The lead arrives. You see it the next morning. By then, other agents have already called. And speed is most of the game: firms that respond within an hour are roughly 7× more likely to qualify a lead than those that wait even an hour longer — and at the five-minute mark, the odds are about 21× higher than at thirty. You’re not losing on skill. You’re losing the race before you knew it started.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2011; MIT / InsideSales Lead Response Management Study