A recent study of several million Internet-generated leads proves the importance of the speed in responding to leads. Speed-to-call was found to be the single largest driver of lead conversion in the first 2 minutes after the lead was generated. In fact, responding to leads within 1 minute resulted in a 391% improvement in conversion to sales.
The critical first couple minutes time window has the highest sales rates, but calling within the first 30 minutes was found to increase conversion rates by an average of 62 percent, and calling within 1 hour was found to improve conversion by an average of 36 percent.
Research shows that even though the consumer may go price-shopping, a sense of ‘loyalty’ drives them back to the vendor who called them first. By initially providing consumers with education and responsive customer service, smart companies are able to create strong social and psychological bonds that tend to override competing offers. In today’s marketplace, consumers tend to think that most products requiring a consultative sale have fairly good substitutes. For example, mortgages, insurance policies, and higher education degrees can all be provided by thousands of national competitors. Reducing friction for consumers in the sales process, including response time and the number of inquiries needed to find the desired product, is beneficial to the consumer experience, and pays dividends for both organizations and consumers.
