When a business is asked about how important customer service is, they usually rank it as one of the foundations of success. One of the most important contact points of customer service is the initial response to a new lead.
With customer service being a cornerstone for most businesses, it is hard to believe that a study completed by the Harvard Business Review shows that when contacted 47% of businesses take longer than 24 hours to respond.
When studying the effects on time-to-contact and the success rate of qualifying a lead, Lead Response Management found that the odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes is 21 times more likely than in 30 minutes. Further if you compare 5 minutes to 10 minutes, the odds of qualification decrease 4 times.
So why is it that while 58% of businesses believe that lead generation is a key challenge business leaders face, only 38% of businesses respond to leads within one hour? It is likely because while 91% of companies with more than 11 employees use CRM software, CRM adoption rates are as low as 24%.
Leads are becoming cold faster than ever before, and with consumers reaching out to multiple providers, it is important for business owners to take the time to ensure their customer service representatives are responding to leads as quickly as possible. One of the best ways to do this is to train sales staff and customer service reps to take advantage of the CRM software that they have access to.
TL;DR;
- The odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes is 21 times more likely than in 30 minutes
- CRM Systems, if used properly, can help reduce time-to-contact
Last modified: January 23, 2020
