We all get leads through places like Google Ads, Angi, Porch, etc. We continue to call with waning results but we always go back to the same thing. We ask ourselves, is it the quality of the lead? No, no it isn’t. The problem is that people just don’t answer the phone anymore. With so many ways to communicate, we need to reduce the friction when contacting a potential customer.
Outbound dialing is crucial to most businesses, and quickly responding is the key to setting more appointments and driving more revenue. Equally as important is the ability to connect quickly with the leads that find you over the phone.
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Text Messages that Work
Don’t believe me? According to The Pew Research Center, 8 out of every 10 Americans do not answer their phone to an unknown number. Yes, that means calling from a local area code. So why with all of this data in front of us do we continue to try? It’s because we have built amazing home services processes that have served us well over the last 20-30 years. However, it is time to change. In order to improve your output, you must change your process.
Email open rates are also on the decline. The average open rate for an email is around 20%. 95% of text messages are opened and responded to within 3 minutes. According to SMS Comparison, more than 50% of your leads would actually prefer text communication to kick off a relationship and they are 5 times more likely to send and receive text messages instead of a phone call.
So what does this mean for your call center? It is time to turn them into a Contact Center. Give them the tools to up your appointment set rate from 10% to 30% by giving them a foot in the door. Take them from working on an outbound method on new leads to an inbound method by answering text messages and moving them through the funnel. Continue that automation until they reply.
Your leads might not necessarily be the problem. The problem is more likely to be the problem with the way you are communicating with them. I see clients of ours every single month give us what they think is their worst-performing lead source and make it their best-performing lead source before adopting it throughout their entire organization.
If you can get to your leads within the first 5 seconds, you are 900% more likely to get in contact versus if it takes you over 10 minutes. By adding in some automation, you solve that every time. Check out our Speed to Lead Playbook to see how our customers have mastered this and allowed them to scale by doubling the number of at-bats they have on their leads.
Lastly, stop calling your leads and start texting them. Communicate with them the way they want to be communicated with.