Contacted
Contacted means a two way conversation with a human, not an outbound attempt.
This is the most commonly abused stage in the category, because dialling a number is easy to log and a conversation is not. A pipeline that marks a lead contacted on the first outbound attempt will report a contact rate near 100 percent and a start rate that looks catastrophic, when the truth is that half the leads were never reached at all.
Benchmark contact rates in full arch sit near 50 percent without a fast intake process. That means roughly half of all leads in this category are never successfully spoken to, which is a staffing problem before it is a training problem.
What is included and what is excluded
Counts
- A live phone call where the patient speaks
- A text or email exchange where the patient replies
- A returned call from the patient after a voicemail
Does not count
- An outbound dial that rings out or reaches voicemail
- A sent text or email with no reply
- An automated confirmation the patient never answered
A worked example
A practice receives 100 leads and logs its intake activity honestly.
- 01Leads: 100
- 02Outbound attempts logged: 260
- 03Leads reached in a two way conversation: 50
- 0450 / 100 = 0.50
The contact rate is 50 percent, even though 260 attempts were made.
How this differs from
- Lead
A lead is the inbound event. Contacted is the first human response to it.
- Speed to lead
Speed to lead measures how fast contact happens. Contacted records only that it happened.
- Qualified
Contact is a conversation. Qualification is what that conversation establishes.
These definitions come from our published measurement standard. Read The Arch Standard for the reporting rules they sit inside, or see every term.
Want this measured in your practice? A consult walks through how we track it, if that is useful.
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