Recently, Leads360 published a breakthrough study explaining how many times your company should be calling each of leads that it purchases or generates. We received a lot of great feedback, but one of the questions that commonly came up was, “How quickly should our company contact the leads that it receives?”…. and the answer may surprise you!
As a lead management software provider, Leads360 has the unique opportunity to analyze a massive sample of leads. We understand the extreme value of having such a powerful tool in front of us, and therefore have a team led by MIT scholar Nisheeth Singh, dedicated to hypothesizing, proving, and/or disproving our theories about the complex nature of leads. Recently, we put our theory of the importance of “speed-to-call” in the sales process to test, and wow — were we amazed.
After analyzing several million leads we found that speed-to-call was the single largest driver of lead conversion in the first 2 minutes after the lead was generated. Companies who were responding to their leads within one minute of receipt were able to achieve 391% improvement! Now of course achieving this extremely quick contact rate on a consistent basis could be a daunting task if not equipped with the right tools, but even if you miss the critical “2 minute window,” your chances of conversion increase by an average of 62% if called within 30 minutes, and 36% if called within the first hour.
As you can see from the above findings, contacting leads quickly should be a necessity, not a luxury. The most popular analogy that we use with our clients is that leads are not bottles of fine wine that get better with age: they are gallons of milk left out of the fridge. Leads are perishable entitles that go from valuable to valueless in a matter of minutes, and therefore require immediate attention.
Now you may be thinking these findings only apply to leads that are looking for a product or service immediately, but that is 100% false. Calling leads instantly is still extremely valuable even for buyers looking to purchase down the road. By calling instantly, chances are you become the first to contact the lead. Additional research shows that the first person to make contact with a lead is more easily able to establish a sense of loyalty and rapport, which in turn can actually override competing offers.
You can’t afford to not be in the know! Click here to download our newest study for free.