Time is money, especially for your sales team. The longer a salesperson waits to contact an interested lead, the less likely they will close the deal. Salespersons who contact potential customers within an hour of receiving a message were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead as those who waited to call after an hour. The optimal lead response time is five minutes or less.
Have you considered a rapid lead response solution? This speed to lead tool is a relatively new technology will automate your sales team's lead response by instantly and automatically connecting a new lead to a salesperson via phone, text or both. A solution like this can help any sales team close more deals. Rapid lead response, also known as speed to lead, is all about connecting with leads, prospects, and customers at the peak moment of interest. The right rapid lead response solution will make that process seamless.
This article will offer some tips to consider as you explore the benefits and measure the value of a rapid lead response solution.
Tip 1: Consider Your Sales Process & Team
A good rapid lead response solution will fit into your current sales process seamlessly while taking some of the more manual tasks off the team's plates.
This solution is particularly effective if your marketing team is supporting your sales process with digital advertising, social media marketing, SEO, or email marketing. The connection between those channels and your sales team can be much quicker and more successful when a rapid lead response solution is involved.
Rapid lead response helps your sales team work smarter and faster!
Tip 2: Look Into Integrations
Your rapid lead response solution needs to integrate with your CRM. This makes tracking the sales journey and collecting data on leads seamless.
Some rapid lead response solutions will store contact and sales data for you if you don't have a CRM. For example, Calldrip keeps a detailed record of each call, including customer contact information and offers click-2-call functionality to conveniently re-engage customers.
Tip 3: Evaluate Communication Channels for Rapid Lead Response Features
When choosing a rapid lead response solution, be aware of the communication channels your sales team uses to respond to leads. Some solutions do not offer every available channel, and this could hurt your sales process. It’s worth noting that Calldrip is the only solution offering both phone and text message communication for that important first touchpoint.
Tip 4: Balance Speed and Ease
We've established that a rapid lead response is critical to closing a sale. However, “speed to lead” alone doesn't necessarily ensure a positive customer experience. A good rapid lead response solution must be easy to use and provide a positive experience, both for your sales team and your prospects, to support the conversion. Evaluate how the solution fits into your team's unique process. Look for potential barriers or problems that might impact your user experience, and decide if you can overcome them before choosing your solution.
Tip 5: Prioritize Performance Improvements
A rapid lead response solution can certainly solve your delayed lead response time problem, but can it improve your sales performance? The best solutions will offer other problem-solving features for your sales team. For example, Calldrip offers conversational scoring and sales coaching tools, in addition to automated review capture to optimize the quality and value of the sales journey. By integrating a rapid lead response solution like Calldrip, you are solving several sales process problems with just one subscription.
Plus a few other considerations:
The five tips above should give you insights into how a new rapid lead response solution could help your business. However, there are other considerations when choosing any new software for your organization. These include:
- Cost -- the best solution will pay for itself by increasing your sales, but the initial investment could still feel significant.
- Text Capability -- if your team is interested in or already relying on text to communicate with leads, your new solution should offer that feature and plan to do more with text in the future.
- Additional Functionality - if there are other barriers or problems your sales team is experiencing, can your new solution address them now or in the future?
- Tracking Phone Numbers -- tagging a sale back to an ad or lead source is critical in calculating the ROI of the solution and your advertising. A good lead response solution will do this via tracking phone numbers used on ads.
- Accountability Tools -- any new software should offer the ability to track KPIs and keep everyone on your team accountable for their progress
- Coaching Tools -- everyone needs help at some point in their career. A good solution should support your sales team with personalized coaching based on their performance.
Conclusion
Choosing a rapid lead response solution for your sales team is a big decision. The tips and information we offered today are just a snapshot of the features you should review when considering your options.
Calldrip offers a comprehensive rapid lead response solution, called Respond. Our system will empower your sales team to follow up with web leads via phone or text in just seconds.
We'd love to show you the value that Respond, and the entire suite of Calldrip tools, can bring to your business with a personalized demo. Contact us today.
