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 · 530 brands · fielded March–April 2025, 44% of franchise brands never sent a personal reply — just an automated acknowledgment, or nothing at all. Among the brands that did reply, the average time to a first email reply was 9.1 hours. 73% of brands never used SMS to follow up.
Only 25% of brands sent a personal reply within 5 minutes — meaning 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 25% of brands sending a personal reply 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.