Lead Nurturing: Increase Your Speed to Lead Response and Increase Your Close Rate

“Will somebody answer the phone!?”

It’s a phrase that is all too common in American dialogue. Though it’s something we’re hearing less and less as home phones go the way of the dodo, it couldn’t have greater significance today as we advise our clients on how to win more business.

Having spent years working with clients in a variety of industries from home services to health care, we have intimate knowledge of what motivates consumers and what irks them. Typically, we help our clients by creating a solid digital foundation, driving qualified website visitors, and encouraging visitors to inquire about services.

Phone etiquette is bad, folks. Really bad.

Over the course of a month, we may have 50 to 100 touchpoints on a client’s marketing initiatives. But our work largely ends when a client receives a lead. As a means of ensuring we’re delivering quality leads, we listen to a sampling of recorded customer phone calls. What we hear is sometimes jaw-dropping. Here are some common issues we observe:

• The phone isn’t answered during business hours
• Voicemail boxes aren’t set up with a greeting
• Voicemails complaining they still haven’t heard from a representative of the company several days after reaching out
• Poor answering skills (no greeting, rude greeting, failing to identify the call as an opportunity and nurturing the lead properly)

While it may seem obvious that these issues will lead to problems, it’s surprising just how common it is. Especially when many of the phone calls that are coming in are a result of a paid advertisement. When spending money on leads, it’s critical that businesses close as many of them as possible. Keep in mind: your prospects are willing to contact a competitor and may have done so already.

The evidence couldn’t be more concrete.

When researching for this article, I found some statistics that emphasize the importance of getting back to prospects quickly:

• A study conducted by Lead Connect determined that 78% of customers buy from the company that responds to their inquiry first.
• In the same study, there was a 391% increase in close rates when a prospect was contacted within a minute of submitting an inquiry.

The old saying, “strike while the iron is hot” couldn’t be truer for turning a lead into a customer.

• According to Forbes contributor Ken Krogue, businesses don’t even make contact with 71% of leads generated because they age beyond the point that a customer is interested in engaging with the business.

Our advice is straight forward:

1. Answer the damned phone! If a prospect calls you, they’ve chosen you. Answer the phone and provide an exceptional experience to allow them to keep choosing you until you’ve secured their business.
2. When you miss a call, make a return call as soon as humanly possible. The sooner you reach that lead, the likelier it is they will do business with you.
3. When someone submits an inquiry through your website, CALL THEM BACK IMMEDIATELY to secure their business. They’ll be shocked at how responsive you are and this will go a long way to winning their favor. Furthermore, there is a high likelihood they won’t reply to the email that you send in response to their inquiry. (Humans are strange, I know.)

Aside from changing your business practices and optimizing processes to introduce these improvements, we deploy technology to help clients respond to leads faster. Learn about Lead Direct Connect to see how you can increase your close rate below.

Get Lead Direct Connect & Respond to Leads Faster

Through our comprehensive marketing services, we deploy a host of technology solutions to track performance, monitor lead behavior, and help clients improve customer service. One of the free tools we include is called Lead Direct Connect.

Lead Direct Connect generates a phone call to your business the instance a prospective customer submits an inquiry through your website. A computer reads the context of the inquiry and provides you with the option to dial “1” to connect to that prospect immediately. Our clients who use this service often share stories about how impressed customers are that they get back so quickly. Those dealers also close a majority of that business.

My experience with Lead Direct Connect has exceeded my expectations. The timeliness of information received allows me to qualify the prospect, understand their needs and get on a call with them in seconds. The opportunity to give such quick responses makes us look bigger than we really are and it’s allowed us to close 80-85% of the leads that come in through our website.

John Norwood, Carolina Solar Security

Because we’re interested in helping business owners step into the digital age with their marketing practices, we’re making Lead Direct Connect available outside of our comprehensive marketing solutions for just $19.99 per month (or $199 per year) + $49 to integrate the technology. Click here to enroll in this service and a team member will contact you with integration instructions. If we built your website, we’ll complete the integration steps for free.

Schedule a Free Consultation Today

Do you feel like your marketing may not be performing as well as it should? We take a data-driven approach to marketing and help clients achieve predictability in advertising spend, lead volume, and return on advertising spend (ROAS). To schedule a free consultation with me to ask questions about your marketing, receive actionable advice about improvements you can make on your own and to inquire about partnering with us, click here to book a call directly on my calendar. I’d love to win your business, but I’d rather you make an informed decision about your marketing and not hire us than go down the wrong path and lose precious time and money.