An important part of running any business venture is interaction with the clients. The best form of contact quite often is the personal one. Reaching out to the clientele on relevant subjects is as important as your marketing strategy. A key part of responding to leads involves having the necessary set up and accompanying strategies and framework. By clearly determining the dynamics of when and how the leads are transferred, you can focus on the appropriate response.
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Here are some tips on how to respond to leads faster.
- Establish alerts related to specific client actions: Speed and relevance are critical to following up on conversations with the clientele. Setting up analytics to determine the specifics on what a customer has viewed prior to making that first conversation is crucial. In simple terms, a fast call back with no context can be a dark experience for the clients.
- Define the merits of a “qualified lead”: This requires close coordination with the marketing department. Judging by the demographics and clientele behavior, you might gain some valuable insight into what makes up a qualified lead. This helps in sorting out leads by priority enabling your firm to close a larger volume of leads and gain exceptional response time.
- Timing is everything: Your call schedule should be aligned with the best time of the day and week in general. Studies have shown that Monday and Tuesday are the worst times to call or make first contact with the client. The best time to make first contact with the client is between 3 and 5 in the afternoon; times generally regarded to as lazy office hours.
- Benchmark your own progress and improve upon it: A popular marketing adage goes, “you cannot improve upon what you can’t measure”. This simply highlights the need to keep track of your lead response times. Having established the average response time, endeavor to improve upon the lead response time on a daily basis.
- Involve individuals from both Sales and Marketing on your team: Sales and marketing are birds of the same feather. Where there is one the other isn’t that far off. Involving both teams in pursuing faster lead response times will greater enhance your firm’s efforts on the same. Both fields provide strategic Intel on customer habits, preferences and needs. All this can be used to bolster quicker lead response times.
A study conducted on a handful of firms in the United States drew the conclusion that firms that contact potential clients in under an hour of receiving queries are at least 7 times likelier to hold relevant conversations and close leads. It is astonishing that only 37% of firms and businesses actually make the effort to respond in under an hour. Lead conversion is determined by two key factors namely lead quality at 57% and lead response time by 43%.
An older school of thought stipulated that it is customary to wait at least 24 hours before making any initial contact with the customer. This line of thinking is completely obsolete. It absolutely makes no sense to waste such valuable time waiting 24 whole hours to respond to customer leads. Advances in telecommunication and the internet have eliminated the waiting period. The faster you respond to leads, the higher the chances of closing.
The present age of technology and lightning fast connectivity allows clients and potential customers to maintain an Omni-present state of sorts. The clientele performs his/her bit of research by accessing information on business websites and pages. It is therefore only right that you meet him/her halfway on the same. That is where the lead response bit comes into play.
Resources: www.insidesalesbox.com/blog/5-must-dos-for-faster-lead-response-time, https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/