Picture this: You’re in the market for a new car, so you do a little research online and browse some dealership websites and fill out a few interest forms online. You find two comparable cars you like at two different dealers. You fill out both interest forms, and then wait.
Within 5 minutes, one dealer calls you and sets an appointment for you to come in for a test drive that afternoon. You go, love the car, and buy it. On your way home, your phone rings, and it’s the other dealership. The sales rep took three hours to return your call — but now, it’s too late. You’re already driving away with a car you purchased from his competitor.
This example illustrates the importance of lead response time — the time between a potential customer inquiring about a product or service, and the business of following up on that lead. As you can see, lead response time can be the single most important factor in making a sale.
In B2C scenarios such as this, it’s common for Sales to follow up within a few hours. But in B2B scenarios, this sense of urgency is often lacking. In fact, according to Harvard Business Review, the B2B response time to leads is 42 hours — which is unsettling since it’s been proven that the chance of qualifying a lead decreases by 80 percent after just five minutes.
On the other hand, when a business reaches out to a potential customer within one hour of the first interaction, they are seven times more likely to qualify the lead than if they were to reach out just one hour later. In other words, the speed with which you reach out to interested customers does more than just show them you care — it can help you beat the competition to a sale.
The Challenges of Lead Follow-up, and How to Boost Lead Response Time
So why are B2B response times so slow? Here are some typical challenges Sales faces when it comes to improving lead response times:
- Missing or inaccurate data can result in time and money spent researching leads, further delaying a response.
- Leads are routed to the wrong departments or person, causing follow-up delays. By the time someone responds, the lead is cold or, worse yet, purchased from a competitor.
- Sales reps face other obstacles, such as lack of training, heavy workloads, technology issues and other problems that get in the way of a timely response.
While there may always be issues that crop up and delay speed to lead, you can address many of these challenges with the right technologies and sound processes for following up on leads.
Here are five tips to help accelerate your lead response times:
1. Set realistic goals for your “speed to lead.”
First, calculate your current lead response time. Once you know how long it takes your business to respond to a lead, set a new goal for your sales reps. For example, if you know your average response time is 48 hours, ask your reps to reach out within 24 hours of receiving the lead. Once they start hitting that goal consistently, set a new goal at 12 hours, then six, then two. By setting realistic goals and revising them as your reps improve over time, you’ll avoid putting too much stress on your sales team while, at the same time, training them to respond faster and improving conversions, little by little.
2. Get your data in shape.
Having a healthy database free of inaccuracies and duplicates is the first step to successful lead management. But up to 25 percent of B2B database contacts contain inaccuracies, causing 40 percent of business objectives to fail. Initiatives such as personalization, lead scoring, and routing — key activities for improving lead response times — fail if mistakes exist in the data. That’s why it’s critical to perform a thorough data audit and take necessary steps to ensure your data is clean and actionable.
3. Keep your priorities straight with lead scoring.
Implementing a solid lead scoring strategy will help you determine which leads have a higher propensity to purchase. Deprioritizing or even cutting out less-qualified leads who are unlikely to convert will enable your sales team to lend more time and energy to responding to leads who are highly qualified.
4. Ensure leads are headed in the right direction.
If response times are low because of improper lead routing, focus on aligning your marketing and sales teams to make sure lead routing processes and service-level agreements are in place to get the right leads to the right team members.
5. Check in on your Sales team.
Sales reps can be up to 21 times more effective when responding to leads within five minutes of the first contact. Ensure the team’s workload is distributed evenly and that no one is overloaded. Emphasize that their main focus should be improving lead response times, and other work as appropriate should be deprioritized.
Drive Sales with Speedy Responses
Showing immediate interest in your leads can help you beat your competition with perfect timing and persistence. In the end, you’ll save time and money on resources while boosting conversions and, ultimately, revenue. Speeding up your company’s lead response time will take a lot of prioritizing and reorganization, but it will ensure a better customer experience — and boost your business success.
Want more insights on improving your speed to lead? BDO Digital offers an array of services to help improve lead response times. Contact us today to host a marketing and sales alignment workshop, review and optimize your lead routing practices, conduct a data audit, or make recommendations for devising a scoring model tailored to your needs. Learn more.
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