Time for a Speed Test
The speed test that I’m referencing is the speed at which you and/or your organization respond to customer inquiries. Recent studies show that your probability of closing business drops considerably when the delay of responding to an inquiry is as little as a few minutes.
As a matter of fact, some studies show that your probability of success will reduce by 700% if you delay responding to an inquiry by five minutes!
The way you can run a speed test is pretty simple.
Go to your website utilizing a private email address.
Then, request information and see how long it takes for someone and/or something in your company to acknowledge that you 1) were at the website and 2) had requested some information.
Autoresponders are a tremendous solution to this challenge.
Obviously, very few companies can afford to have an employee standing by, waiting to respond to every web inquiry.
But, all companies can afford to have an autoresponder “standing by”, ready to respond to all inquiries instantaneously.
Once that initial response is made by an autoresponder, it must automatically tee up a task for a member of your team to call.
If your team is not readily available, then the autoresponder should promise a phone call “within the next business day”. Then, it is your responsibility to make sure that all members of your team adhere to this requirement.
Most CRM systems interface with an autoresponder, if they don’t have one built into the system already.
It then becomes relatively simple for management to inspect compliance with this requirement. Any phone call teed up that is not made within 24 hours should be flagged to management and addressed appropriately.
Under no circumstances should an employee be allowed to delay responding to a client’s inquiry, for more than the aforementioned 24 hours.
In today’s fast-paced decision-making world, your competition will get business if you are “asleep at the switch“. Make sure that you’re not by utilizing a fast-response strategy, across the board.
