Slow Lead Response Time: How It Damages Your Conversions

 

Have you ever been on a site that you liked, attempted to reach out, filled out a form, and tried to purchase something, but got annoyed when it took a while to respond? Well, yes, I had too. And guess what, it made me lose interest in buying the product in the first place. 

What Is Lead Response Time?

Lead response time refers to the amount of time it takes for businesses to follow up with leads after they've been contacted by prospects via inbound or outbound channels.

When Can You Consider a Response Time Too Slow?

The average time it takes for B2B sales teams to respond is 42 hours, which is a very long time. Customers will believe you have forgotten about them by that time. Even a day and a half is excessive. Years ago, it may have been the norm, but it is no longer acceptable. 

How Fast Should Salespeople Respond?

According to conventional belief, emails and web forms should be responded to within 12 hours. It's great if you can answer in a matter of hours. To keep leads satisfied and engaged, you must work hard.

When It Comes to Leads, Why Is Speed So Important?

A sluggish rate of lead generation may be detrimental to your company in a variety of ways. Some of the negative implications are as follows:

Salespeople Fail to Qualify Prospects

Sales professionals who take 24 hours or more to reply to inbound leads are 60 times less likely to qualify prospects than those who respond within an hour. This stops salespeople from driving prospects farther down the sales funnel.

Customers Can’t Get a Quick Solution

You're simply making it harder for the prospect to solve whatever problem they're having by extending your response time. As a result, they're either forced to wait for your assistance or compelled to contact another provider, neither of which is great for your prospects.

Competitors May Steal Existing Customers

Your prospects often compare you to your competition. You can lose competitive deals just by having a slow reaction time. Fifty percent of the time, a vendor chooses the organisation that answers first.

To avoid these adverse consequences, you should try to improve your response time, and to do that, you should calculate the time first.

How to Calculate Lead Response Time

You'll need to do the following to calculate your lead response time for a certain prospect:

The time and date on which a lead is contacted - The time and date when a lead is received = The time it took for you to answer

How Can You Shorten the Time It Takes for a Prospect to Respond?

Now that we know that a long response time leads to dissatisfied customers, it is necessary to shorten the response time, and for that, you will have to do the following:

1. Ensure that lead notifications are not missed or delayed.

2. Send an automated email to your inbound lead right away to get the sales follow-up process started.

3.  Get leads texted to a phone so the team can immediately contact your prospects.

4.  Use a chatbot on your corporate communications platform to exchange leads.

5.  Provision your team with leads tailored to their competencies.

6.  Use autoresponders for your emails.

7.  To save time with answers, use templates.

8.  Recruit a response team that will be in charge of the situation.

Since most customers prefer quick responses, boosting your response times is critical to the success of your sales activities. So, if you want to improve lead response times and conversions, leverage the best lead generation services in Dubai.