The first impression in any relationship often is the most memorable: the first time you met your spouse, your favorite teacher, or your boss likely left an imprint in your mind and set a baseline for your relationship moving forward.
The same is true in the buyer/seller relationship. In Australia, there’s a saying: “First in, best dressed.” In other words, the one who responds quickly and makes a positive first impression will get the sale.
Put yourself in your interested prospects’ shoes. They’re shopping online and checking out your products (and those of your competitors). Those who are truly interested will likely want more information, so they digitally raise their hands in interest by requesting a phone call or email.
Online buyers are used to instant – or at least quick – gratification. If they don’t hear from your organization within 24 hours, they’ll begin to think you don’t care about them or want their business. When prospective buyers feel ignored, they move on to your competition to meet their needs.
To help your organization make a timely, positive first impression, we start a virtual stopwatch the moment qualified leads land in your nominated sales representatives’ hands. We ensure your reps show the prospects that they are valued by following up with them in a set timeframe to make sure the interested prospects get the information and attention they need to make a positive first impression.
When we find that your prospects aren’t being contacted in a timely fashion, we often find that either that representative is no longer with the department or there are other barriers that have prevented the rep from making timely contact. In that case, we’ll immediately move the interested prospect to another representative who can give them the attention they want and need.
Our call center team also can reach out to prospective buyers by phone to let them know you’re aware of their interest and will be contacting them soon. Then we send their contact information directly to your sales team. We don’t do any pre-selling on that call – we’re just helping you initiate a strong first impression with your prospective buyers. Taking it a step further, if the buyer requested contact because they were influenced by your marketing campaign or advertising effort, we can capture that data within SmartLead.
Interested buyers today shop and compare prices online, which makes it easy for them to bypass much of the relationship building that used to take place during the sales cycle. When one of these prospects makes the effort to ask for additional information about your products or services, it’s important to follow up quickly and professionally. The agility of your sales representatives, paired with the fail-safe of our checks and balances system, will help you be first in, best dressed and get a positive ROI on those qualified, interested leads you’re paying to capture.