Chances are you’ve dealt with a prospect going MIA after reaching out to your company. Here’s why ghosting happens. Your lead-response time is too slow. It’s slower than your prospect’s thought processing time.
The company that responds the fastest is the company that is going to get that sale. Companies that respond within 5 minute are 100x more likely to connect and convert the opportunities. A slow-lead response time is causing you to lose significant revenue.
The sales leader has to set expectations for your team. Some sales professionals will naturally respond right away. Some might only respond right away when they happen to be at their desk. The sales leader has to set expectations, and provide support so they can meet those expectations.
Automation is the answer
The best support you can give your team is to create a system of automation for the leads that are coming into your organization. A lead management system that is automated is going to naturally increase your conversion rate.
It’s an automatic response to your prospect from within your system. It might be an automated email, a chat bot, or a text message. It’s some form of communication to let the prospect know you’ve received the inquiry.
A good response
Your automated response could be pretty general. “Thanks for your interest in my product or service. We will respond to you shortly…”
Now this automated response is better than no immediate response. It buys you some time while you get your formal response ready. But it also gives your prospect the opportunity to view you like every other company. “Will they respond to me today? Tomorrow? Within the week?”
The better response
So the automated response is a start, but there is a better way. Create an automated response that sets the expectation and outlines the remainder of the sales process. It is often said that when we go to close, a confused customer will not buy. Well, the same is true for a prospect getting an automated response. If they don’t know what’s coming, they won’t buy either.
“Thank you for submitting your inquiry, you will receive a response from _____ at _____ time. If you’d like to reach out to _______ you can reach them at ________.”
This gives the prospect some control over the process, and a customer who feels informed and in control of the process is more likely to close.
I understand that not every company can do this kind of automation. Maybe your company is too large to do this because you have too many sales prospects coming in and it’s not always immediately clear who will handle one. Maybe it’s too small and you don’t have the human power to make it happen so quickly.
Take it one step further
But there’s a way you can give a customer even more control no matter how large or small your company is. Let your customer book their own discovery call. They now have complete control of their buying process.
An added bonus to letting them book their own discovery call is that– when done properly– it qualifies the customer for you. I suggest creating a pre-booking questionnaire that will allow only qualified candidates to book the call. If a prospect answers those questions to your standards and is ready to book that call right away, you can bet they are ready to make a decision.
