Answering Leads Before They Go Cold

The leads may already be there

When new business is slow, the instinct is to blame marketing and go looking for more leads. But a lot of what looks like a marketing problem is a response-time problem. The leads are already coming in. They're going cold before anyone answers them.

Whoever answers first usually gets the job

A lot of people call the first business that looks right, and if nobody picks up, they call the next one. A home-services owner on Reddit's small business forum said that when his calls went to voicemail, about one caller in eight left a message. The rest called someone else.

The research backs that up. When Harvard Business Review tested how more than 2,000 US companies handled web inquiries, the ones that got back to people within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to have a real conversation with the buyer as the ones that waited even one more hour, and more than sixty times as likely as the ones that waited a day. Almost a quarter of the companies never replied at all.

That's why the plumber who picks up at 6pm gets the job and the one with the nicer truck doesn't.

Find where your leads leak out

Walk through your own business the way a new customer would:

• Call your main number from someone else's phone while you're busy. What happens? A full voicemail box, a generic greeting, and endless ringing all send people to the next name on the list.
• Fill out your own contact form. Where does it go? How long until a person sees it? Forms often email an address nobody checks.
• Email your info@ address and see who answers, and when. Who Actually Watches Your info@ Address covers the usual ways that goes wrong.
• Try it all again at 7pm on a weekday. That's when a lot of people finally have time to call.

What to set up this week

You don't need a call center. You need four things:

1. A text back on missed calls. Most business phone services have a setting for it, usually called something like "missed call auto-reply." Quo (formerly OpenPhone) and Grasshopper both have one. Keep the message short and human, since some services cap it at 160 characters: "Sorry I missed you, this is Dana at Bay Plumbing. I'll call back by 5. Or text me what's going on and your address." It acknowledges them and starts the intake. Don't let it try to answer questions or quote prices.
2. A voicemail greeting that says when you'll call back, and a voicemail box that isn't full. "You've reached Bay Plumbing. I'll call you back within two hours during business days" keeps more people on the line than "leave a message."
3. A contact form that reaches a person. Send form submissions to an address someone reads every day, and turn on phone notifications for that address. Then turn on the form's automatic reply, so the customer gets "Got it, I'll get back to you by tomorrow morning" right away.
4. One list of who's waiting on you. A note on your phone, a whiteboard, or a spreadsheet. Every inquiry goes on it, and it comes off when the person has a real answer. Check it at the start and end of each day.

Before you spend more on marketing

You've already paid to get these people to reach out, through your ads, your listing, your truck, or word of mouth. Answering them faster is the cheapest growth there is. Test your phone, your form, and your inbox this week, and fix the slowest one first.