Quickly getting in touch with a prospect who has submitted an online inquiry is one of the key ingredients in a customer-centric service strategy. This is true simply because people’s attention is constantly shifting. What is important now, is less important in an hour.
If a sales rep at the other end of an online inquiry receives it some hours or even days later, they are going to see that inquiry as a fresh bit of news. In reality, the prospects priorities have shifted in the time that has passed since they requested information, or a quote.
It’s tempting for a sales rep to think of the prospects interest in their product as a durable fixture in the prospects overall landscape of interests and desires. It is true that their interest in the product is real. It’s real enough for them to ask for information about it. But it’s important not to confuse the realness of their interest with a permanence of interest.
There’s an old saying that you never step in the same river twice. This is true of reaching out to prospects as well. The person who, yesterday, has thought long enough and deeply enough about what you are selling to ask for more information is the same person who, today, has spent the day with their family at the beach.
Call this prospect within one minute of when they submit an inquiry and you will be speaking to the same person who wants to hear about what you’ve got to sell. Call them tomorrow and you’ll reach them in the middle of family time. You are an interruption. Or more likely, you are a guy leaving a voicemail.
While you are interrupting them, you are asking them to reconnect with desires and interests that they were articulating at some time in the past. The further back in the past, the more likely that the desires will be difficult to connect with. The more difficult they are to connect with, the more of an interruption you are. And of course, the more of an interruption you are, the worse the experience of your customer.
So be quick. Don’t be an interruption.
