{"id":1265,"slug":"rule-pair-calculator-with-five-minute-followup","title":"R6 — A lead-capturing calculator is wasted infrastructure without a 5-minute follow-up SLA; build the SLA first","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["customer-facing-tools","lead-capture-gating","speed-to-lead"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Do not recommend a lead-capturing calculator (any gated tool) unless the client has — or is about to build — an operational 5-minute follow-up SLA. The SLA is the precondition, not a follow-on improvement.\n\n**Why:** Oldroyd 2007 ([[mit-lead-response-study-2007]]): odds of *contacting* a lead drop ~100× between a 5-minute and a 30-minute response; odds of *qualifying* drop ~21×. A calculator that fills an inbox you check on Mondays converts to almost nothing — the lead quality decays past usefulness inside an hour.\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Before recommending a gated calculator, ask: who picks up the lead, on what schedule, with what tooling.\n- If the answer is \"we check the inbox a few times a day,\" default to [[rule-default-to-directional-range-ungated]] instead.\n- If building toward the SLA, document the rollout sequence (SLA → operational practice → then gate the calculator).","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"mit-lead-response-study-2007","title":"MIT / InsideSales.com Lead Response Management Study 2007 (Oldroyd) — odds of contact drop ~100× from 5min to 30min; commonly misattributed to Harvard","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-customer-facing-calculators-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: customer-facing calculators & tools for SMBs — the honest case (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"article-customer-facing-calculators-win-work-or-backfire","title":"Article (draft): A calculator can win you work — or quietly cost you the deal","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-run-90-day-portal-adoption-test","title":"R2 — Run a 90-day adoption test with a cheap bought portal before committing; if <40-50% of clients log in, the portal is solving a problem the client base doesn't have","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-design-for-goal-gradient","title":"R2 — Design every multi-step tool for the goal gradient: visible progress + low interaction cost + start-state non-empty when possible","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-20T16:50:09.699Z","updated_at":"2026-06-20T16:50:09.699Z"}