How fast should you reply to an enquiry?

The short answer: within minutes, and the first reply should help the person take their next step, such as booking a call. If a buyer has contacted more than one supplier, the first useful answer tends to set the conversation.

What the 2026 data shows

In March 2026 Workato sent demo requests to 114 B2B companies and timed the replies. Workato sells automation software, so weigh the findings with that in mind, but the numbers are hard to ignore.

• The average first reply by email took 11 hours 54 minutes.
• Only 1 of the 114 companies replied by email within 5 minutes.
• The average phone call back took 14 hours 29 minutes.
• Nearly 20% never replied by email, and 69% never called back.

Buyers notice. In Mixology Digital's 2025 report, 61% of 511 B2B buyers in the UK and the US named slow replies to their enquiries as one of their biggest frustrations with suppliers.

Why replies are slow

Rarely because nobody cares. Enquiries arrive in different places, the right person is in a meeting, and an email that needs a proper answer waits for a proper moment. By the time that moment comes, the buyer has spoken to someone else.

How to reply in minutes without living in your inbox

• Send an instant reply to every enquiry, by email or text, in your own words, with a link to book a time.
• Text back anyone whose call you miss, straight away, so the conversation doesn't end at voicemail.
• Put every channel in one inbox, so a DM or a website chat gets the same speed as an email.
• Assign each enquiry to a named person, with an alert on their phone.
• If nobody has replied personally within the hour, pass it to a second person automatically.
• Let an AI agent answer common questions from your own information, and hand over to a person when it should.

What to measure

Track the time to first reply for every enquiry, split by channel and by whether it arrived in or out of hours. Then track how many enquiries become booked calls. If replies get faster and bookings don't move, the reply itself needs work, not the speed.