Lead Response Time: 5 Minutes May Not be Fast Enough

The Best Response Time Wins

A recent experiment revealed that only 42% of B2B companies responded to leads within 5 days (yes, you read that right — days). What’s even more shocking is the fact that the other 58% never bothered to respond. Given the fact that B2B marketers are projected to spend over $4.6 billion in advertising this year to attract these leads, that’s nearly $2.7 billion down the drain.

Not only that, even research dating back to 2007 shows that responding to leads within 5 minutes dramatically increases the likelihood of connecting with prospects. Wait 30 minutes to contact that prospect and your odds of connecting with them plummets 100x.

Source: 2007 Original Kellogg/MIT Study, Dr. James Oldroyd

But it’s 2018 — prospects expect a near immediate response. Whether it’s due to the change in buying behavior, or new technology that allows instant contact, it’s simply common sense to respond to inbound leads as soon as possible.

Make it easy for reps to respond to leads quickly

With countless sales tools open at any given moment, it’s no wonder that some leads can fall through the cracks. Plus, reps may not be notified in real-time about incoming hot leads. That’s where something like the Intelligent Dialer makes the difference when it comes to true sales productivity.

When new inbound leads come through, reps are alerted in real-time via a desktop notification. They don’t have to refresh lead lists in Salesforce or switch back and forth from different applications to view hot leads. And when it comes to lead response time, every minute counts especially when 72% of B2B buyers say that a vendor’s response time is the most important attribute of a winning vendor.

In the Intelligent Dialer, leads are not only queued chronologically, but reps can easily use a drop down to filter by lead source. From here, having a contextual conversation is simple since reps will know exactly where prospects are coming from, what content they’ve engaged with, any comments or notes the prospect may have left, and more.

Reduced lead response times means more sales opportunities

Even though connecting with a prospect is important, it’s even more significant to note that decreasing lead response times can help fill your pipeline will more sales opportunities. Not only will you beat out the competition as the first to respond, your team will also be the first to qualify the prospect. In fact, those odds are 21x greater when lead response is 5 minutes versus 30 minutes. You can see where calling while the lead is still hot can have a huge impact on sales results and your company’s bottom line.

Interested in seeing this in action? Chat with our team to see a demo. 

If you’re already using Revenue.io, email support@revenue.io to enable this feature for your team.