THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE. How to Gain a Competitive Advantage with Phone, Voic , and Best Practices

Transcription

1 THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE How to Gain a Competitive Advantage with Phone, Voic , and Best Practices

2 FORWARD FROM NICK HEDGES President and CEO, Velocify Sales acceleration technologies have gained considerable momentum over the past few years and are now part of a multi-billion dollar industry. Adding fuel to the fire, consumers are conducting more of their purchase research online. In fact, 67% of the buyer s journey is now done digitally. 1 Because of this, many companies are shifting a higher percentage of their sales teams from field sales to inside sales. 2 Pivoting to an inside sales approach has created a significant opportunity for sales acceleration technology. Most people are familiar with marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) because these technologies have been around for years. But, what is sales acceleration? Sales acceleration technology helps shorten the sales cycle and makes the sales process more effective and efficient. This includes everything from reducing the time it takes to get on the phone with an interested buyer to speeding up the process of collecting contract signatures. Attention on sales acceleration has only recently gained traction, but some of this technology has been around for more than a decade. During this time, much has been learned about the benefits of an accelerated sales process. The research presented in this study focuses on the sales teams initial response to interested buyers (sales leads). Findings from this research yield best practices that can dramatically increase your sales team s performance and significantly increase your topline revenue. 1 SiriusDecisions, The Marketing Organization in Steve W. Martin, The Truth About the Field Sales to Inside Sales Migration Trend ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 2

3 METHODOLOGY Velocify has access to data on the sales process progression of millions of leads. This data includes all interactions between interested buyers and sales representatives, including response tactics, speed-to-contact attempts, contact persistence, and conversion rates. With this data, there is significant insight that can be gleaned to determine best phone, voic , and practices when responding to leads. In addition to analyzing lead progression data, Velocify has put many companies to the test by conducting lead response assessments on hundreds of sales teams. This involves submitting virtual leads through company websites and tracking how sales teams respond via phone and for 22 days. With both sets of data, actual sales team practices can be compared to best practices and we can begin to bridge the gap. BEST PRACTICE ACTUAL SALES TEAM PRACTICE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 3

4 TIM THE BUYER AND JOE THE SALES MANAGER Let s put this into context and follow a day in the life of Tim the Buyer and Joe the Sales Manager. MEET TIM THE INQUIRING BUYER Tim is shopping for a product or service and your company has an offering that meets his needs. Like a growing number of consumers, he is doing research online. He has spent a few minutes on your website and is interested enough to complete a demo request or online sales form. MEET JOE THE SALES MANAGER Joe has more than 10 years of experience managing sales teams. While he has had some success making judgments on gut instinct and experience, he is looking for insights that will give him a competitive edge to improve his team s sales process. Let s see how Tim and Joe can help illustrate the findings of our research and the importance of sales acceleration to shorten the sales cycle. ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 4

5 SPEED-TO-CALL Tim, the inquiring buyer, has just filled out a sales form on Joe s website, which means he s probably not in an important meeting or busy doing something else. The next few minutes represent a precious window of time when Tim s interest in the product or service Joe s company offers is peaked and he is probably available for a phone call. When it comes to responding to a sales inquiry, speed matters! Unfortunately, Velocify has found that sales teams, like Joe s, take an average of 48 hours to respond via phone. BEST PRACTICE Calling a lead within one minute more than doubles conversion rates. Impact of Speed-to-Call on Conversion 2.3x 2.14x 55% ACTUAL SALES TEAM PRACTICE Increase in Conversion 2.1x 1.9x 1.7x 1.5x 1.3x 18 % 1.72x 1.59x 1.36x 1.26x 51 % 45% 35% 25% 15% Percentage of Inquiries Only 3% of inquiries receive a phone response in less than one minute. 1.1x 0.9x 3 % < 1 min 30 mins 6 % 6 % 6 % 1.03x 10 %.85x 1 hr 2 hrs 12 hrs 24 hrs 48 hrs or later 5% -5% Speed to First Contact Attempt Actual Response Speed Optimal Needs Improvement Inadequate Increase in Conversion Compared to Calling 48 Hours Later On the other hand, when it comes to , the correlation between speed and conversion rate is not as strong, but important nonetheless. A significantly higher percentage of companies respond via within an hour. This is largely due to the wide adoption and efficiency of marketing automation. ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 5

6 CONTACT PERSISTENCE Tim is a busy person, so he might not pick up the phone right away, even if you call him quickly. But, how many times should your sales team attempt to contact him before giving up or moving him to a nurture status? One could argue that sales reps should attempt to contact Tim as many times as it takes to get him on the phone. Others might say that after a couple of attempts, it might be better to divert resources to greener pastures. Our research shows that the answer is somewhere in between. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 32 % % 2 76% 46 % 85% 3 90% 4 Number of Calls 93% 96% 97% 98% 99% 100% 5 6 Number of Call Attempts to Make Contact 95% of converted leads are contacted by the 6th call attempt 8 % 7 % Actual Call Persistence Optimal Needs Improvement Inadequate Cumulative Percentage of Converted Leads % 12 or more A similar analysis was conducted to find the optimal number of s to send to unresponsive leads. BEST PRACTICE CALLS: Make between five and seven calls by the sixth call attempt, 95% of leads who will eventually convert have been contacted. S: Send between four and six s prior to moving a lead to a nurture status. ACTUAL SALES TEAM PRACTICE CALLS: Only 8% of inquiries received between five and seven calls. A surprising 32% of inquiries never received a single call, while 46% received between one and four calls, leaving much room for improvement. S: Only 7% of leads received the optimal number of s, between four and six. Most leads, 53%, were under ed, receiving between one and three s, and 28% of leads did not receive a single . ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 6

7 VOIC Making six calls to every unresponsive lead might seem like too much for some, but many times, inquiring buyers only notice missed calls when voic s are left. Let s go back to our buyer, Tim. He may have received six calls, but if only one voic was left, he might only take notice of that particular call. With this in mind, Velocify researchers hypothesized that leaving six voic s on all six call attempts could be detrimental to conversion rates. To find out, researchers looked at leads that received the optimal six calls prior to contact and compared the conversion rates of those that received no voic s to those that received more. BEST PRACTICE Leads who are left two voic s on six missed calls are 34% more likely to convert than leads who don t receive any voic s at all. Number of Voic s 50% 40% 30% 20% 49 % 28% 23 % 34% 24% Leaving two voic s is optimal when following a six call strategy. ACTUAL SALES TEAM PRACTICE Only 12% of inquiries received two voic s. Almost half of inquiries did not receive any voic s. 10% 12 % 5 % 5 % 9% 0% -10% 0% 2 % 2 % -10% MORE IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER -20% -30% % Leaving five or six voic s is actually worse than leaving no voic s. Number of Voic s Actual Voic s Left Optimal Needs Improvement Inadequate Increase in Conversion Compared to Leaving No Voic s ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 7

8 VOIC TIMING If a six-call, two-voic strategy is used, on which of the six calls should the two voic s fall? BEST PRACTICE Increase in Conversion 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 21 % First Voic 31% Leaving the first voic on the second call attempt is optimal. 8 % -19 % -20 % -17 % Our research shows that leaving the first voic on the second call has a 31% higher conversion rate than leaving that voic on any other call. A similar analysis found that leaving the second voic on the fourth call is optimal. -10% -20% -30% Call 1 Call 2 Call 3 Call 4 Call 5 Call 6 This makes sense when using The Ultimate Contact Strategy, which recommends making the first three call attempts on the first day. Leaving two voic s on the same day might be considered too aggressive, so spacing the voic s out makes sense. ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 8

9 CONSISTENCY: SPEED-TO-CALL One of Joe s biggest challenges is enforcing a consistent contact strategy for his sales team. He may have created a contact strategy based on his intuition, but how does he know that his team is actually following that strategy? While Joe would love for his team to be consistently quick in getting interested buyers, like Tim, on the phone, he has no way of knowing how his individual sales reps respond to leads. Impact of Consistent First Call Response Timing BEST PRACTICE Companies that showed relative consistency in the timing of their first call attempt had a 33% higher conversion rate than companies that were inconsistent x 1.3x Increase in Conversion 1.2x 1.1x % 33 Difference 1.0x.9x Consistent Inconsistent 3 Consistency measures were evaluated based on a maximum standard deviation for responses. Only companies that had an average call response time of under 24 hours were considered for this analysis. We didn t want to compare companies that were consistently slow. ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 9

10 CONSISTENCY: NUMBER OF CALL ATTEMPTS Joe knows from experience that persistence matters, but his sales reps are laser focused on meeting quota and often ignore seemingly unresponsive leads. While Joe requires his sales reps to make more than one call attempt, most of his reps never make a second call attempt. Again, it is hard for Joe to know exactly what his reps are doing because he has no process or technology to track call persistence. Impact of Consistent Number of Call Attempts BEST PRACTICE Companies that were consistent in their sixcall strategy had 39% higher conversion rates than companies that were inconsistent. 1.4x 1.3x METHODOLOGY Increase in Conversion 1.2x 1.1x 1.0x.9x Consistent % 39 Difference Inconsistent Companies that showed appropriate levels of persistence (calling an average of five to seven times) were split into two groups: those with sales reps who were consistently calling close to six times and those with reps calling a wildly varying number of times. For example, half of Company A s reps make six call attempts and the other half make five or seven calls. Half of Company B s reps make one call and the other half make 11 calls. Both Company A and Company B make an average of six calls but Company A s sales reps are much more consistent. ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 10

11 CONCLUSION When prospective buyers show enough interest in your product or service to submit their contact information, it is important for your sales team to show interest in them. Responding quickly and with the appropriate level of persistence not only ensures that you are maximizing revenue, it also establishes the foundation of a good relationship between buyer and seller. If Tim does not receive the proper level of attention during the buying process, his perception of your company might be damaged. Sales teams, like Joe s, need the right tools to respond to today s buyers as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Joe is a good sales manager, but without the right tools, he will find it difficult to sustain the level of growth that his company is demanding. Ultimately, Tim wants a positive buying experience and Joe wants to ensure that his sales reps are delivering the right level of customer experience. Sales acceleration technology enables ordinary sales teams to become extraordinary by making it easier to quickly respond to leads and by ensuring the appropriate level of attention is given to each buyer. In addition, it enables sales leaders to have the visibility needed to enforce a consistent and repeatable process. This evolution in sales practices has been shown to have a significant impact on revenue. Sales teams need to take a closer look at arming themselves with the latest technologies or leads will continue to fall through the cracks and revenue will be left on the table. ULTIMATE GUIDE TO INQUIRY RESPONSE 11

12 Get Started Today! Do you have the tools to execute an optimal inquiry response strategy? Learn how smart sales technology can help you sell more and rise above the competition. Get Demo Like this study? Share it. Velocify is a market-leading provider of cloud-based intelligent sales software, designed for high-velocity sales environments. Velocify helps sales teams keep pace with the speed of opportunity and increase revenue by driving rapid lead response, increased selling discipline, improved productivity, and actionable selling insights. The company has helped more than 1,500 companies across a variety of industries improve customer acquisition practices and sales performance. Velocify was recently recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in North America by Deloitte and a Best Place to Work by the Los Angeles Business Journal. For more information, please visit velocify.com or follow the company on Contact Sales: l sales@velocify.com Subscribe to our blog: velocify.com/blog VELOCIFY.COM