MVA Intake Team Best Practices: Speed to Lead, Follow-Up, and Close Rate

Speed to lead: why 5 minutes matters

The data is unambiguous: the odds of contacting a lead drop by a factor of 10 within the first hour. A lead called within 5 minutes is roughly 100 times more likely to be reached than a lead called after 30 minutes.

MVA leads go cold faster than almost any other lead type. The accident victim is being contacted by other firms, chiropractors, and their own insurance company within hours. The firm that reaches them first wins a disproportionate share of cases.

To hit 5 minutes you need three things: real-time lead delivery (API to your CRM, not a daily email batch), an auto-dialer, and a rep whose only job is to call new leads the second they arrive. If your intake team also answers inbound calls and does admin work, you will never hit 5 minutes.

Follow-up cadence: the 7-day protocol

Most signed cases do not come from the first call. They come from the 3rd, 4th, or 5th contact. A single call and a voicemail is not a follow-up system — it is a hope.

A proven 7-day MVA follow-up protocol:

• Day 1: Double-dial on receipt. If no answer, send an SMS and an email.
• Days 2-7: 3-4 double-dials per day, staggered across morning, midday, and evening. One SMS per day. One email on day 3 and day 5.
• Day 7: A "we are closing your file" message that often produces a response.

Automate the cadence where possible (sequence-based dialing, scheduled SMS/email) but keep the calls human. Most firms give up after one or two attempts, which is why most leads are wasted.

Auto-dialers and number rotation

An auto-dialer is non-negotiable for real volume. It removes manual dialing time and lets reps spend time talking, not typing.

Number rotation is the part most firms miss. One number gets flagged as spam within days and your answer rate collapses. A good system rotates multiple local numbers, monitors spam flags, and swaps flagged numbers automatically. Local caller ID matching the lead's area code also improves answer rates.

Close rate benchmarks

Know your numbers so you know what to fix.

• Form fills (exclusive leads): 10-20% close rate with a disciplined intake team. Below 10% and your intake is the bottleneck, not your leads.
• Live transfers: 50-70% close rate because the lead is qualified and on the phone. See what a qualified transfer is.
• Signed cases: near 100% — the case is already signed when it arrives.

If your form-fill close rate is under 10% and your speed to lead is over 30 minutes, you do not have a lead problem — you have an intake problem.

How to audit your intake team

Pull your last 100 leads. For each, track: time to first call, number of contact attempts, outcome. Calculate your contact rate and close rate. If contact rate is under 60% or close rate is under 10%, the fix is intake, not leads. Read our guide on how to audit your MVA lead vendor for the full diagnostic.

When to switch from leads to live transfers

Intake optimization has a ceiling. If your team is fast, disciplined, and well-trained and you still cannot hit your target CPA, the answer is a different delivery model.

• Outgrowing leads when contact rate is high but close rate is stuck → move to live transfers.
• Outgrowing transfers when your team cannot keep up with live calls → move to signed cases.

The right model is a function of your intake capacity, not your ego.

Book a strategy call

Intake optimization is the highest-ROI work you can do this quarter. Book a strategy call and we will assess your intake team, estimate your current CPA, and tell you which delivery model fits your capacity.