Too often we ourselves down by not having a process that allows us to respond quickly to enquiries – I know our business has been guilty of this in the past and still occasionally is.

Lately I have been trying to find a couple of new contractors to join our growing team. For one role we needed someone with specialist skills in Active Campaign – which is a great Marketing Automation system that we use in addition to Hubspot and Pipedrive CRM. So we did what most people do, asked someone for a referral.

A trusted contact of mine gave me the name of someone they highly recommended. So I called them and left a message on voicemail. 24 hours no response. Called them again same results. Filled out a website enquiry form – no response. The results our $50,000 worth of work will have go to someone else.

A breath of fresh air

In contrast, yesterday I called an App Development company (two in fact). Left a message for one and got an email response later that day when they couldn’t reach me – perfect. Spoke to another one. I will be using one of these two companies. Why – because I know they will be responsive.

We let ourselves down

Too often we ourselves down by not having a process that allows us to respond quickly to enquiries – I know our business has been guilty of this in the past and still occasionally is. Which seems silly when we think of all the time and money we have put into:

• building referral relationships;
• creating great website content that attracts visitors;
• digital strategies that convert website visitors into enquiries;
• paying for ads and then not following up  on enquiries.

Tradies know best

Have you ever used an online trades sourcing service like Home Improvement Pages, Service Seeking or even Airtasker? You post a job (generally for tradespeople in the case of the former services) and people contact you to bid on the job. I’ve used all three a lot in the last few months. Posted a job at 7am and by 7.05 they have started to call or email me asking to bid on the job.

Guess what happened  – the person who called me back first, second or third – and then followed through with the quote as promised got the job.

The early bird catches the worm

Because of services like the ones above – our expectations are for an immediate response. Haven’t you ever send an email and then wondered why your recipient hasn’t responded straight away? Your inbound phone and website enquiries are exactly the same.

These days with Marketing Automation and Email Alerts there is no excuse for not having the right process in place that allows you to respond immediately to enquiries.

No matter whether you run a Law Practice, Tech Business, Building or Wholesale Business don’t have your forms directed to an email address that someone reads one a week.

Have all your form enquiries directed to the best salesperson you have that can respond immediately (within an hour or two max). Also have a series of email templates ready that acknowledge the enquiry and most of all check your voicemail and call back anyone who has left you a message.

You just don’t know how much money you could be losing by not responding to your phone and website enquiries quickly enough.

Want better results?

If you want some help to review your sales and marketing process and put in place a great sales or marketing automation process so you can win more business – we would love to help.

Just call us on (02) 9125 0520 to speak to a real person first or contact us here.

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