How to follow up with sales leads: how many times to call, at what time and who decides. Caetano reports 15 to 30 contracts per rep.
How do you follow up with sales leads? Give every lead an owner and a next task with a date. Set from management how many attempts are made, at what times and through which channel. And don't let anyone close or postpone a lead without a logged attempt. That way follow-up stops depending on each rep's memory, with no CRM change and no need for you to chase anyone.
Updated: October 2026 · Written by Alex Sánchez, co-founder of Vixiees, who works daily with sales teams handling high lead volumes.
"With Vixiees, it's impossible for a customer to go uncontacted." So says Ricardo Ruiz de Adana, marketing director at Grupo Caetano and head of Caetano Mobility. He used to get emails from customers saying "I asked for information and nobody called me." Today he has reps who close 30 contracts where they used to close 15, and it was up and running in under a month (data reported by Caetano Mobility).
What is lead follow-up?
It is everything that happens after the first contact attempt, until the lead buys or is closed with a reason. On a B2C team with many leads, it is not an art: it is a chain of tasks. Call, call again at a different time, write on WhatsApp, send the proposal.
In our experience, the problem is almost never that the team doesn't know how to do it. Ricardo sums it up: "The second one is follow-up, I think that's an endemic evil of CRMs." The CRM creates the task. What it doesn't do is make sure it gets done.
How fast should the first contact be? Under an hour
Under an hour, and ideally minutes. Follow-up starts with an advantage or a delay depending on that first attempt. A study published in Harvard Business Review analyzed 1.25 million leads from 42 U.S. companies. Those that tried to make contact within the first hour were almost seven times more likely to qualify the lead than those that waited one more hour. It dates from 2011: take it as an order of magnitude. In the same research, of 2,241 companies sent a test lead, 23% never responded.
Rentiner, a car leasing comparison site, measured it: only 9% of its leads were called within 15 minutes. With automatic distribution, that went up to 57% (data reported in their success story).
How many times should you contact a lead? More than 5
There is no fixed number, but almost always more than your team makes. Caetano Mobility went from 5 to 10 call attempts per lead. Ricardo describes the reps' reaction: "call a customer five times, but they're going to get angry with me." And the result: "the difference in conversion rate between calling a customer five times and calling them ten is higher."
Don't just copy the 10: Rentiner gives up on a lead after 5 unsuccessful attempts. Look at which attempt you get your contacts on today and set the limit a little above it. We cover it in more depth in how many times to call a lead before giving up.
How often and at what time should you follow up? At a different time each attempt
At different times. If you always call at 11, you always call someone who can't pick up at 11. Ricardo explains with his own example: "if the customer asked for information, it's because they want you to contact them. Maybe we're calling at the wrong moment."
This is an illustrative example of a cadence (not customer data), to adjust with your own numbers:
Attempt | When | Channel |
|---|---|---|
1 | Within the first minutes | Call |
2 | If no answer, right away | WhatsApp with your name and the reason |
3-4 | Same day, midday and afternoon | Call |
5-6 | Day 2, morning and end of day | Call |
7-8 | Days 3 and 4, at a different time | Call + WhatsApp |
9-10 | Days 5 to 7 | Call and closing message |
The order matters as much as the time. At Total Renting, management sets the priorities: first whoever has just called or written, then the follow-ups at 24 and 48 hours (according to their success story). To fine-tune the time slots, see what is the best time to call a lead.
Phone, WhatsApp or email? All three, from the company's system
Phone to talk, WhatsApp so the customer knows who is calling, email for the proposal. What can't happen is the WhatsApp living on the rep's own phone.
Ricardo tells what they discovered with their best saleswoman. She sold a lot, but "she was the one who did the fewest tasks in Vixiees": she had a large portfolio of customers and "was handling it outside." If follow-up doesn't stay in the company's system, nobody measures it and it leaves with the rep. You'll find sample messages in WhatsApp follow-up templates.
Why does follow-up fail even with a CRM? Because it lets reps postpone and close without calling
It is behavior, not people: when the system lets reps decide, each rep decides, and with many open leads they pick what is comfortable. Three behaviors repeat:
Postponing without trying. Óscar Martí, CEO of Rentiner: "We had found agents who came to their screen each day, took all of today's tasks and rescheduled them for tomorrow."
Closing without a trace. Ricardo: "a rep in a traditional CRM system can complete a task without leaving any evidence that they actually did it."
Forgetting the next task. Diego Juárez, from Total Renting, talks about leads "that get lost in that limbo, let's say, where in the end nobody ever contacts them again."
They are fixed by removing the decision, not with another meeting. We develop it in why your CRM doesn't solve lead follow-up, and the automatic messaging part in automated follow-up.
When should you stop following up with a lead? When your cadence runs out
When the rule you set is met, not when the rep gets tired. Once the attempts are used up, the lead is closed with a specific reason and a destination: discard it, reactivate it on a date or move it to another offer. You'll find the list of reasons in lead discard reasons.
The Owner-Cadence-Evidence method: 3 steps so follow-up gets done without chasing anyone
We call it Owner-Cadence-Evidence (OCE). It is a Vixiees framework, drawn from what we see in teams like Caetano, Total Renting and Rentiner. With Vixiees, the system does a good part of it; if you use another tool, check that it does the same.
Step 1. Owner: every lead has someone and a next task with a date
No lead can be left without an owner or a next step. If the rep forgets to schedule it, the system schedules it. Diego puts it this way: "even if you're having a bad day and you forgot, fine, don't worry, I'll show it to you the next day."
What the system does for you: it assigns the lead on arrival and creates the next task when each attempt is closed.
Step 2. Cadence: management decides the attempts, the times and the order
How many attempts, at what times, through which channel and what goes first. You decide it once and it applies to everyone. The rep doesn't choose whom to call: they press "next task" and the right lead comes up.
What the system does for you: it sorts the work list with your priorities and hands leads to whoever is free.
Step 3. Evidence: nothing is closed or postponed without a logged attempt
Every call and every WhatsApp message is saved. A call task can't be completed without a call. And at the end of the cadence, the lead is closed with a reason.
What the system does for you: it shows you every day what is pending and who hasn't done it. You go from reviewing records to listening to calls. From cop to leader.
See how follow-up would work in your team
we show you how your follow-up would look with the OCE method on your team: how many attempts, in what order and which leads are being left today without a next step.
The 3 most common doubts:
"I don't want to change CRM." You don't have to. Caetano still uses Zoho: "Vixiees has not replaced, and I don't think you intend to replace, our CRM." Rentiner still uses HubSpot.
"My team won't accept being told whom to call." At first they complain. Ricardo: "Today, after all this time, it's no longer in question, today it gets done." And at Total Renting, "after two or three days of training you already have them working."
"I don't have months to roll it out." Caetano was up and running in under a month, set up by its own team and with no consultancy.
Caetano Mobility: from 15 to 30 contracts per rep without the director chasing anyone (reported data)
Caetano Mobility is Grupo Caetano's flexible car leasing and subscription brand. Before, its reps worked from lead lists in Zoho and each one decided what to touch. Tasks were closed without a trace.
Aspect | Before | With Vixiees |
|---|---|---|
Contracts per rep | 15 | Up to 30 |
Call attempts per lead | 5 | 10, with better conversion |
Order of the day | Each rep picked from a list | "Next task" button with management's priorities |
Evidence of activity | Tasks closed without a trace | Every call, WhatsApp and attempt logged |
Sales director | Chasing to make sure calls got made | Analyzes calls and builds plans per rep |
Data reported by Caetano Mobility in its success story, 2025-2026 period, and in the interview recorded by Vixiees.
Ricardo sums it up from management: "our sales director no longer has to chase the reps to make them call customers." And he warns: if you roll it out, "either you do it right or it's better not to do it." Half the team in and half out doesn't work. You'll find the full case, told for car dealerships, in dealership leads nobody calls.
Total Renting: no lead forgotten in limbo
With more than 70 salespeople and 7 managers, Total Renting reports that each rep handles twice the leads in the same time and that productivity rose between 30% and 35%. It also reports that leads nobody called again are now shown again the next day. Lorenzo Bertolini, its sales director: "before I was a cop and now I'm an ally of the sales team."
Rentiner: from 9% to 57% of leads called within 15 minutes (reported data)
Rentiner stopped depending on each agent ticking off their tasks. It reports that it now calls 57% of leads within 15 minutes and 80% within an hour, and that the deals created per 100 customers handled went from 20% to over 30%.
Does your team have a follow-up process but not follow it?
Vixiees turns your cadence into each rep's work list: one button, "next task," with your priorities, your attempts and your schedules, and every call and WhatsApp message logged. No CRM change.
Keep reading: Pipedrive with large sales teams and contact cadence in B2C sales.
Alex Sánchez's take, co-founder of Vixiees: when a team doesn't follow up, it is rarely an attitude problem. Usually the system lets them postpone, close without calling and choose whom to call. If you change that, follow-up gets done without you standing over them. And your time goes back to listening to calls and training, which, in our experience, is what raises sales the most.
Frequently asked questions
How many times can you call a lead?
There is no fixed number. Caetano Mobility went from 5 to 10 attempts per lead and reports better conversion; Rentiner closes after 5 unsuccessful attempts. In Spain, the General Telecommunications Law (art. 66) protects against unwanted commercial calls unless there is prior consent or another legal basis: if they asked for information about that product, you have a basis to call them (confirm with your legal advisor); if they tell you no, that's the end of it.
How do you follow up with leads on WhatsApp?
From a company WhatsApp connected to the system, never from the rep's personal phone. Use it right after an unanswered call, with your name and the reason, so the customer knows who is calling and can reply whenever they want.
Which CRM works for lead follow-up?
Any of them works for logging; the problem is making sure follow-up gets done. Caetano still uses Zoho and Rentiner HubSpot, with a tool on top that decides each rep's next task. We explain it in sales execution layer without changing CRM.
How do I know whether my reps are following up?
Check three figures every day: leads with no next task, tasks postponed with no attempt, and tasks closed with no call or message logged. If any of them is not zero, follow-up depends on each person's goodwill.
