The industry best practice for franchise lead follow-up is under 5 minutes — but most brands fall far short of that. According to the FranFunnel Franchise Lead Response Time Study, Q1 2025, covering 500+ brands across 14 franchise categories, the average email response time was 8.8 hours, 35% of franchise brands never responded to an inquiry at all, and 73% of brands never used SMS to follow up.
Only 26% of brands responded within 5 minutes — meaning nearly three out of four franchise brands are losing candidates to slower-than-acceptable follow-up. At that pace, a prospect who submitted an inquiry on Monday morning might hear back Tuesday afternoon, if at all. By then, they've already talked to two other brands.
The 5-minute benchmark isn't arbitrary. A franchise candidate is in an active comparison window the moment they submit an inquiry, and the contact-rate drop-off after the first few minutes is steep. With only 26% of brands responding inside that window, the one that gets there first usually starts the conversation — which is why speed isn't just courtesy. It's one of the highest-impact improvements a franchise development team can make to pipeline quality and deals closed.
FranFunnel delivers a first text to every lead in under 60 seconds — automatically, nights and weekends included — which is why speed-to-lead research breaks down exactly where franchise brands are losing ground and what response time actually costs them in closed deals.