Please indulge me and take my one question test: What are lead response strategies?
Stop kidding yourself with that inner voice that is calmly telling you that everything will be alright because your pipeline is full of leads. Frighteningly you aren’t closing nearly enough of your projected quota to keep your company afloat or your job intact. The leads keep flowing but you aren’t closing – so what’s going on here?
“Companies are making big investments in order to obtain customer queries from the internet, and they should be responding at internet speed.” – Harvard Business Review
According to a new case study in the Harvard Review “The Best Practices for Lead Response Management” by InsideSales.com: the most common method for first response to a lead was through email, only 28.6% of leads were first responded to by phone, and 77% of leads never received a phone call even though calls have higher response rates and are more likely to turn into a sale. InsideSales.com produced their case study examining nearly 5,000 leads and came to the conclusion that the majority of companies are “slow to respond to leads and not persistent in following up.”
Sound familiar? Stop treating your warm leads like they are cold calls.
Lead Response Strategies You Can Use to Close Sales Start with Immediacy
Immediacy of response is the critical linchpin to closing sales. Some startling facts from the InsideSales.com Harvard Review report:
- Average Phone Response Time is 44 hours: In the era of “get it now” expectations, would you wait nearly two full days to buy from your company?
- Optimal Phone Response Time is 5 minutes: Can you compete? Do you have a plan with dedicated people ready to reach out when leads come into your website?
Persistence of Lead Response: Glue that Closes the Sale
This is where if you respond to your leads in a timely manner, your company has a shot of converting those leads to sales.
- Average Persistence of Lead Response: 4.47 touches
- Recommended Persistence of Lead Response: 12 touches
That’s right, the average effort put forth by companies (yours too?) in contacting a potential customer is not even half of the recommended responses.
Even crazier than that last statistic – “50% of leads were not responded to at all”. I repeat: 50% of leads were not responded to at all.
Changing Your Lead Response Strategies
So let’s review the facts. If you want to change your closing rate then consider these lead response strategies.
- Make phone calls
- Evaluate the best days and best times for response calls and how that affects your closing rate
- Get ‘em while they’re hot – immediately call back
- Be three times (3x) more persistent than you are right now. That means at least 12 touches
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