Speed-to-lead benchmarks for forex sales desks

Speed-to-lead is the time between a lead arriving and your first real contact. It's the cheapest conversion lever a broker has: it costs nothing in ad spend and needs no new tools if your CRM is set up well.

Why minutes matter

A trading lead is at peak interest the moment they submit a form. They're often comparing several brokers at once. The first broker to call usually gets the conversation.

Benchmarks to aim for

How to measure it

1. Record lead created at and first contact at (first call connected or first two-way message).
2. Report the median, not the average. A few very late leads distort averages.
3. Split by desk, agent, source and hour of day.
4. Track contact rate alongside speed: fast calls that never connect don't count.

Seven ways to get faster

1. Auto-assign every lead. No queues and no cherry-picking.
2. Set SLAs: e.g. 15 minutes for new leads, 24 hours for contacted leads.
3. Send a daily at-risk digest to managers and reps every morning.
4. Use WhatsApp as a backup: if the call doesn't connect, send a template message right away.
5. Click-to-call from the lead record, so there's no dialling by hand.
6. Staff the peaks. Most leads arrive in the evening in the lead's time zone, so schedule shifts accordingly.
7. Make it visible. Show response times per agent on the floor dashboard.

Outside desk hours

• Send an instant acknowledgement by WhatsApp or email.
• Queue the lead for the first call at opening.
• Consider a small evening shift for your top market.

Speed-to-lead in Alphorix

Alphorix assigns leads in seconds using routing rules and round-robin. SLA alerts send a daily 08:00 digest to managers (team totals) and reps (their own leads), and 3CX click-to-call and WhatsApp templates are one click away on every lead.

Calculate what faster follow-up is worth →