How Long Does a Prospect Have to Wait For a Call Back From You?

In this article, I want to share with you the benefits of using a website call back system to convert more prospects into qualified leads. Lead response is one of the more complex aspects of the sales process, and you need to figure out what works best for you. In fact, most competitive sectors (car purchase, insurance, etc.) require leads to be contacted instantly as soon as a query is raised.

At the very least, what you can do is qualify the lead, position yourself as a trusted consultant, and provide direction for the rest of the buying cycle as you take the lead forward through your sales funnel. You’re effectively hanging a sign which tells the competition arriving after you that this lead has been qualified, and they’re going to have to respond on your terms.

But the response time varies vastly for other business sectors that may want to qualify leads before responding. But even after factoring in this need for qualification, it’s still beneficial to be one of the first to respond to a sales lead, if not the first one. Every minute matters when it comes to lead response. Fast response has numerous benefits, including up to 48% increase in lead generation, and up to 72% more conversions.

Before I explain how you can do this – respond instantly to prospects and end up with a qualified lead, the first step is to ascertain what is your current lead response time. Do you know how long a prospect has to wait, on average, to get a call back from you? For that matter, do you know how many of your website visitors would love to talk to you, but didn’t try to get in touch?

Your Prospects Are Waiting For a Call Back From You

There are quite a few reasons why your website visitors may not be contacting you. But the sum of it is that visitors on your site (even those who are interested in buying your product) are just not motivated enough to want to look up your contact details and then call or email you. The same person may instantly buy your product or service if you called them instead. For more complex sales, they will at least show their interest and agree to talk again or meet with you for a follow up.

So that’s the challenge – You are getting website traffic, but no one’s calling you. How do you find out which of your website visitors are potential customers that simply need to talk to you?

The solution – Implement click to call back on your website that says – “Please leave your name and number and we’ll call you back right away.”

Call Back as a Trigger For Conversation

Customersthatstick conducted a survey of over 1,100 respondents on how customers feel about waiting on hold, and their views on the callback alternative. Over 50% of respondents in the survey showed that they would wait between one and five minutes before choosing the callback option.

It shows that any visitor on a website actually wants to find (read buy) a solution right then and there. However, most don’t take any action to do that. It may be because they aren’t motivated enough, or your website doesn’t have the right messaging and call to action. Either way, a callback option may push you past this initial reluctance and help connect you to more of your website visitors.

Another interesting stat thrown up by the aforementioned study is that over 25% prefer the callback option over waiting. A trigger to get the conversation started is just the thing you need to convert more of your visitors into leads.

CallBack as a Tool For Building Trust

Web Psychologist Nathalie Nahai explains that “one of the biggest barriers to gaining new clients is lack of trust” and that the context of your website messaging can influence your online credibility. Trust can be gained much more easily if your visitors are able to speak directly with you or another member of your sales organization, instead of having to make a judgment based on what’s there on your website. So provide a callback tool on your website to enable more people to talk to you instantly, while they are still on your website.

Create a positive first impression through instant response, talk to them and offer solutions to their problems and needs. It builds their trust in you, and helps position you as a trusted consultant (as opposed to a sales rep trying to close a sale quickly) who understands their business, it’s problems and the requirement at hand. Qualify the lead and add it to your sales pipeline for regular follow-ups, as you would with any other lead that needs multiple contacts and followups before you can even think about closing the sale.

Call Back – Putting a Face to Your Business

The logical extension of personal contact with a website visitor is that, in the eyes of this engaged lead, it puts a human face to your website and company. Why is this important? Apart from the fact that it’s easier to trust a real live human being than a company, there’s also the issue of conversion rates. It could vary a lot, but the average for a consumer product blog is about 2-3%, while a financial services website may convert up to 10% of the people who land up on the site. Regardless, this conversion rate shoots up to over 50% or more for the same visitors who have then been engaged through an inbound call.

The thing that makes a world of difference is the human element. Putting a name and face to your business makes it far more likely that a website visitor will go on to become a customer, as compared to all the visitors who go away without talking to you.