When you’re running a business it’s important to stay on top of your figures, and you should measure key performance indicators to review performance and plan for the future. One of these metrics is the lead time from when a prospect is created to when they become a customer. If you know how long that period is then you can adjust your nurture sequence if the timescale is longer or shorter than expected.
As your leads may be added using one system and sale conversions recorded in another, it can be hard to extract that data unless you do it manually, which isn’t very efficient. Our favourite way of streamlining this process is to use Zapier to trigger and perform the calculation when the relevant data has been updated.
Our zap can be used for any business scenario where you need to calculate the difference between two date/time values. For example, the time between a customer signing up to an email list and them becoming a paid subscriber, or the time between invoice creation and payment.
Our example uses a Google Sheet to store the data but could equally use Microsoft Excel spreadsheet instead.
The Google Sheet already contains the lead’s name and timings, which can be created automatically from web forms and your CRM using Zapier. Examples of web forms that integrate with Zapier include Ninja Forms, WP Forms, and Zoho Forms. CRMs include Pipedrive, Salesforce, Dubsado, and Hubspot.
Video demonstrating how to calculate lead to customer conversion time
Our new video shows how to calculate lead to customer conversion time, in both days and hours.
The steps are:
- Create a trigger event for when the Google Sheet was updated with the time the prospect became a customer.
- Use Formatter By Zapier’s Date/Time action event (with Format transform option) to convert the timestamp of the first enquiry to a Unix time which is the number of seconds since a prescribed date in the past and used by computers for date/time calculations.
- Use the Date/Time action event again to convert the timestamp of the lead becoming a customer to a Unix time.
- Use Formatter By Zapier’s Numbers action event (with Spreadsheet-Style Formula transform option) to calculate the number of days between the two dates. Use the formula (X-Y)/86400.
- Use the Numbers action event again to calculate the number of hours between the two date/times. Use the formula (X-Y)/86400 *24 or (X-Y)/3600.
- Update the spreadsheet with the resulting figures.
You could add in another step to calculate the number of minutes, using the formula (X-Y)/86400 *24 *60 or (X-Y)/60.
Find out more
If you’d like to dig deeper into the world of Formatter By Zapier to unlock the power of what you can do with its functions then you can get our free cheat sheet below.
Watch the video and subscribe to our YouTube channel
Save some time and download the Zap template
If you liked the video and can use process in your business, go ahead and download the ready-made template below. Once you have the template, just open it up in your Zapier account and customise it to your needs.
Save time and grab our pre-built Zap template
More Youtube tutorials
We have other Youtube video tutorials which will help you work smarter, not harder.
- How to automate a 7 day sales cadence
- How to use Zapier to send a simple drip email sequence
- How to create and send a bespoke sales proposal PDF from your CRM
- How to automatically add contacts to ActiveCampaign from Pipedrive
- How to automatically save contact form submissions in a spreadsheet
- How to automate the creation of a Trello checklist for handling Twitter engagements
Our other resources
We also have plenty of free resources:
- Our free e-book is the perfect introduction to business automation.
- Our Zapier functions cheat sheet delves into the powerful inbuilt helper apps which can supercharge your automations.
- A free checklist to help you justify an automation budget.
And finally, our founder / chief problem solver / chief automator Kelly Goss’ new book, Automate It with Zapier, is out now and is the most comprehensive Zapier guide on the market. It will get you up and running and to the stage where you can build and debug advanced automations. Buy your own copy today directly from publisher Packt using this link. Or here are links to Amazon (.co.uk) and Amazon (.com) if you prefer.
Solvaa: Strategy, Solutions, Support, Education
UK-based Solvaa® is a systems, process and automation consultancy specialising in improving business workflows. Solvaa® works with SMEs worldwide to implement digital tools, better processes, use business process automation and generative AI to boost productivity, enhance lead management, and remove unnecessary time, costs and hassles from stretched business owners’ days.
We help you simplify and streamline existing processes, integrate your business tools to make data transfer more efficient, and automate manual tasks. Our business process automation specialists have extensive experience using multiple cloud-based business tools, including Zapier, Pipedrive CRM, SmartSuite, Xero, Google Suite, ClickUp, Asana, Airtable, Hubspot, Active Campaign, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Quickbooks and many more. We are Zapier Certified Experts, SmartSuite Certified Partners, Pipedrive Certified Partners and Xero Certified Advisors. We also educate teams about using AI in their daily roles, mindset, governance and strategy in our Solvaa AI Academy.
Solvaa® was founded in 2016 by Kelly Goss, a no-code solutions architect, business process automation specialist and author of Automate It with Zapier (first edition) and Automate It with Zapier and Generative AI (second edition).
A thought leader on business process automation and digital adoption, Kelly attended an invite-only Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the UK government at No.10 Downing Street, providing insights and recommendations on how SMEs can benefit from productivity gains by using digital technologies, automation and AI. She has also been invited to speak at the House of Lords and at many other events.
Contact us today to find out how Solvaa can help your business make big savings on operational costs and time, and significantly increase productivity.
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