A moving customer who fills in a quote form on Moving.com, a lead vendor or your website is usually comparing several movers. Moving.com matches each customer with up to four. The customer books the survey with whoever reaches them first and sounds like they know what they’re doing.
That makes speed to lead, the time between a lead arriving and your first contact, one of the few numbers a moving sales team fully controls.
What the studies found
Four studies get quoted most. Here’s what each one measured and how much weight it can carry.
| Study | What it measured | Main finding | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead Response Management study (InsideSales.com and Dr. James Oldroyd, 2007) | 15,000+ web leads and 100,000+ call attempts at 6 companies, over 3 years | Odds of contacting a lead were 100 times lower at 30 minutes than at 5 minutes, and odds of qualifying 21 times lower. From 5 to 10 minutes, contact odds fell 5 times | Vendor data, not peer reviewed, didn’t measure closed sales |
| Harvard Business Review (Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, 2011) | Response times at 2,241 US companies | Companies that responded within an hour were about 7 times as likely to qualify the lead as those that waited longer. 23% never responded | Measured hours, not minutes |
| Velocify (2012) | About 3.5 million leads at 400+ companies | Calling within a minute lifted conversion by 391% compared with later calls. 93% of converted leads were reached by the sixth call | Vendor data, heavy on mortgage and insurance |
| SmartMoving State of Moving Report (2026) | Survey of 484 moving companies | Only 38% respond to leads within 5 minutes. Average close rate 39%; average 2.5 days from lead to booked job | Self-reported, by a CRM vendor |
Sources: Lead Response Management study, HBR, Velocify, SmartMoving.
None of them proves that the first mover to call wins the job. The often-repeated claims that “35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first” and “78% buy from the first company to respond” have no traceable study behind them, so we don’t use them. What the data does show is that the chance of even reaching a lead falls fast, within minutes.
Why speed matters more for movers
Three things make moving leads go stale faster than most:
- Shared leads. Vendors sell the same lead to several movers. Network Leads sells shared leads to up to four movers, and Moving.com matches each customer with up to four. Every minute you wait, a competitor may already be on the phone.
- The customer is ready now. People request moving quotes when they’ve just signed a lease or accepted an offer. They want a survey booked and a date held.
- Peak season. HireAHelper’s booking data puts about 45% of moves in May to August. That’s when leads arrive fastest and the office has the least time to call them.
How fast are movers now?
SmartMoving’s 2026 survey is the best mover-specific figure we’ve found. Of 484 moving companies, 38% said they respond to leads within five minutes, and the report gives eight minutes as the typical speed to lead. It took an average of 2.5 days to go from lead to booked job.
So most movers are already slower than the five-minute mark. That’s an opening for any company that sets up a fast callback.
How to get every lead called within five minutes
1. Send every lead to one place
Web forms, vendor leads, Google Local Services leads and Yelp messages should all land in your moving CRM or one lead inbox, not in four email accounts. If a person has to notice an email before calling, you’ll miss the five-minute mark at lunch, on job days and after 5pm.
2. Call automatically, not when someone notices
Use a dialer or CRM automation that rings the next available rep as soon as a lead arrives, with the lead’s details on screen. If nobody’s free, the lead should go to the top of the queue, not the bottom of an inbox.
3. Text straight away
Send a text within a minute that names your company and says someone will call shortly, or lets the customer pick a time. Vendor data from Verse, which handles lead texting for its customers, found leads who got both texts and calls answered far more often than call-only leads. Say who you are: the FMCSA lists a phone answered with just “Movers” instead of a company name as a fraud red flag, and customers know it.
4. Call again, on a schedule
The first call often goes unanswered. Velocify found only 48% of converted leads were reached on the first call, 70% by the second and 93% by the sixth. Its best second call came 30 to 60 minutes after the first. The follow-up cadence guide has a full schedule.
5. Respect calling hours
Under the FCC’s telemarketing rules, sales calls to homes are limited to 8am to 9pm in the customer’s time zone, and Florida and Oklahoma stop at 8pm. Leads that arrive at 10pm should get a text right away and a call first thing in the morning. If you use an AI voice to call leads, the FCC treats it as an artificial voice, which needs the person’s prior consent. This is a summary, not legal advice.
6. Measure it every week
Track the median time from lead to first call attempt, by source and by hour of day. The overall average hides the leads that arrive at 6pm on a Friday in June.
What speed to lead means for phone calls
For a customer who calls you, speed to lead is simply whether someone answers. CallRail’s September 2025 survey of 1,000 US consumers found 21% immediately call another business when nobody answers, and only 42% say they leave a voicemail. A voicemail is a lead you now have to call back, against the clock.
If your team can’t answer every call, an answering service or AI receptionist can. See what an answering service costs and how movers handle after-hours calls. The missed-call calculator works out what unanswered calls cost you.
How MoverPhone helps
MoverPhone puts new web and vendor leads in a call-back queue that rings within minutes, with a power or parallel dialer for your reps. Its AI receptionist answers inbound calls 24/7, asks moving questions and books estimates, and it texts back anyone who hangs up. Calling-hour limits and DNC scrubbing are built in. It syncs with SmartMoving, Supermove, MoveBoard, Elromco, Movegistics and HubSpot. See the auto dialer.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good speed to lead for a moving company?
Under five minutes for web and vendor leads, and answering live for phone calls. Shared leads from vendors like Moving.com go to up to four movers at once, so the first company to reach the customer usually gets the survey. SmartMoving's 2026 survey of 484 movers put the benchmark at eight minutes, with only 38% responding inside five.
Where does the five-minute rule come from?
From the 2007 Lead Response Management study by InsideSales.com and Dr. James Oldroyd, which analyzed more than 15,000 web leads and 100,000 call attempts. The odds of contacting a lead were 100 times lower at 30 minutes than at 5 minutes. It's often credited to Harvard Business Review, but HBR's 2011 study measured response within an hour, not five minutes.
How many times should a mover call a new lead?
At least six times over the first few days, unless the customer books or asks you to stop. Velocify's 2012 analysis of about 3.5 million leads found 93% of converted leads were first reached by the sixth call, and only 48% on the first. Its best-converting second call came 30 to 60 minutes after the first.
Does speed to lead matter for phone calls too?
Yes, and the fix is different. A phone lead's speed to lead is whether anyone answers. CallRail's 2025 survey of 1,000 US consumers found 21% immediately call another business when nobody picks up, and only 42% say they leave a voicemail.
Can I call a web lead back at night?
Federal telemarketing rules bar sales calls to homes before 8am or after 9pm local time, and some states, such as Florida and Oklahoma, stop at 8pm. A customer who just asked you for a quote is in a stronger position than a cold prospect, but most movers queue after-hours leads for the morning and send a text right away instead. Check with your lawyer for your states.