It used to be that if a customer was interested in a product or service and had a few vendors they were considering, a phone call would be made to each to get all the initial questions answered. These days, with the help of the glorious World Wide Web, often those initial questions get answered online, without phone calls. Your website, plus any PR or social media reviews that have been done on your products and company, serve as the source of basic info for a customer shopping for goods and services.
But if you think this makes the phone obsolete, you could be making a critical error. Businesses may not be getting as many calls from people in the early stages of the buying cycle, but usually that means that the calls they do get today are far more valuable. A recent study by the Corporate Executive Board states that customers tend to reach out to a business by phone when they are already 57% of the way through the decision-making process.
In other words, you’ve passed their initial tests and they’re ready to ask more critical questions. Being able to answer every one of these phone leads right away and get them to the right quickly to the right person to close them is critical.
Ensure That the Right Rep Is Getting the Call at the Right Time
When a prospect is ready to talk about becoming a customer, don’t waste their time with a confusing phone tree. And don’t send their call to a rep who can’t help. Instead use an advanced call routing tool to ensure that when they pick up the phone to call, they are being routed straight to the rep who is not only available to take the call, but the best possible person to answer the lead’s questions. Routing directly to a specific sales agent (even if they are working from home) or subset of sales agents simultaneously with the first one to answer getting the lead is important to converting that lead to an opportunity or a sale.
When They’re Ready to Talk, Respond Right Away
You should ensure that if a customer has a question or wants to see a demo of your prodcut, you get them on the phone right away. For example, if a customer fills out a Contact Us form or Request a Demo form on your website, don’t let that lead’s information go off to languish in an email inbox of uncontacted web leads. Instead, have that submission trigger an instant phone call that immediately connects that lead with one of your reps. The lead is in a critical stage of the decision-making process: if you don’t snap them up right away, they could quickly turn the prospect from hot to cold. Or they could end up doing business with a competitor who calls them back first.
If prospects that are reaching out to you by phone are already 57% of the way through the decision-making process, then the way you handle that conversation is critical to closing. Want to accelerate that process? Download our white paper, Close More Leads, Faster: Accelerate Inbound Lead Response Time.