The average email response time to a franchise inquiry is 8.8 hours — and 35% of franchise brands never respond to an inquiry at all, according to the FranFunnel Franchise Lead Response Time Study, Q1 2025, which analyzed 500+ brands across 14 franchise categories. Only 26% of brands responded within 5 minutes, which is the widely cited industry best-practice benchmark. The gap between where most brands are and where they need to be is enormous.
This is a deal-flow problem, not just a customer service problem. Franchise candidates are evaluating multiple brands at the same time. The first brand to engage a candidate in a real conversation earns disproportionate mindshare. When a lead submits an inquiry and hears nothing for hours — or nothing at all — they don't wait. They move on to the next brand on their list. A slow or absent first response doesn't just delay the conversation; it ends it.
The cost of that silence is concrete. A single franchise signing is worth $250,000 or more in fees and royalties. Every candidate who goes cold because no one followed up in time isn't a missed conversation — it's a $250K+ decision that went somewhere else. Speed to lead isn't a vanity metric. It's the front door to your entire pipeline. If the door doesn't open fast, most candidates never come inside.
For a deeper look at the research and what the data says about how response time affects contact rates and conversion, speed-to-lead research.