Speed to lead for financial advisors: how fast to reply, and how to do it
How fast an advisory firm should answer a new inquiry, what the research says, what the first reply should contain and how to get there without adding staff.
By Daniel Lubin. Published . 6 minute read.
The short version
- Aim for a first reply in under five minutes during business hours and under two minutes after hours.
- In a Harvard Business Review study of 2,241 US companies, the average first reply took 42 hours and 23% never replied.
- The first reply needs a name, one specific line and a booking link. Leave advice out of it.
- Automation drafts and sends. A person at the firm still approves anything personal.
Speed to lead is the time between a prospect contacting your firm and your first real reply. For an advisory firm, the target I recommend is under five minutes during business hours and under two minutes in the evening and on weekends, with a person approving what goes out.
That is hard to hit by hand, because inquiries arrive when everyone is in a meeting or at home.
What does the research say about reply time?
The best-known study is from Harvard Business Review in 2011. The researchers sent a test inquiry to 2,241 US companies and timed the replies. Only 37% answered within an hour, 24% took more than a day and 23% never answered. Among companies that replied within 30 days, the average first reply took 42 hours.
The same article analyzed 1.25 million sales leads. Firms that tried to reach a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to have a real conversation with a decision maker as firms that waited one more hour, and more than 60 times as likely as firms that waited a day or longer.
Two cautions. The study covers many industries, and I have not found one of the same quality limited to advisory firms. It is also from 2011. Read the multiples as a sign of direction, and expect your own numbers to differ.
Why does reply time matter more for an advisory firm?
Because each inquiry is expensive and each client is worth a lot. Kitces Research put the median cost of acquiring one client at about $3,800, as reported by Financial Advisor magazine. A client paying around 1% a year on $1 million is worth roughly $10,000 a year, often for many years.
The timing works against you too. People think about their money in the evening and on weekends, when nobody at the firm is watching the inbox. Nothing stops a prospect from filling in two more forms while yours sits unanswered until Monday.
How fast should an advisory firm reply?
These are the targets I build toward. They are my own recommendation.
| When the inquiry arrives | First reply | What goes out |
|---|---|---|
| Business hours | Under 5 minutes | A personal reply, drafted automatically and approved by staff |
| Evenings and weekends | Under 2 minutes | A pre-approved acknowledgment with a booking link, then a personal follow-up the next morning |
| No answer to your reply | Day 2 and day 5 | Two short follow-ups, then stop |
What should the first reply say?
- Thanks, by name, from a named person at the firm.
- One line that reflects what they actually wrote, so it is clearly not a form letter.
- A link to book a call, with two or three sentences on what the call covers.
- Your normal signature and disclosures.
Leave out advice, opinions on their situation and anything about performance. The first reply has one job, which is to get a conversation on the calendar.
How do you reply in minutes without hiring anyone?
- Your website form or booking page triggers the workflow the moment it is submitted.
- A contact and an opportunity are created in your CRM, with the message attached.
- AI drafts a reply from wording your firm has already approved, plus the prospect's own message.
- Someone at the firm gets the draft on their phone and approves it with one tap, or edits it first.
- The reply goes out with a booking link. The send is logged in the CRM, and reminders and a no-show follow-up are scheduled.
After hours, step 4 is replaced by the pre-approved acknowledgment, and the personal reply waits for the morning. If your firm runs on Wealthbox, its API supports every step here.
What about supervision and records?
A faster reply does not change who is responsible for it. Keep a person approving anything personal, limit the automatic after-hours message to wording your compliance officer has signed off, and write every draft, approval and send back to the CRM. The rules behind that are in AI and automation compliance for RIAs.
How do you measure it?
Track three numbers: the median time to first reply, the share of inquiries that book a call, and the no-show rate. Measure for two weeks before you change anything, so you have a baseline to compare against. Use the median, because one inquiry that sat over a holiday weekend will distort an average.
Advisor Ready builds this as a fixed-price system. The lead response page shows what happens second by second.