Following Up Sales Leads Instantly

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Many businesses get new business leads through every day and some do not have the time to follow them all up. Sometimes leads that are followed up do not respond to an e-mail, or the client does not answer the phone; at this point many companies will just leave the lead.

In sales terms, the longer a sales lead goes unresponded to, the colder it becomes. This could be for a number of reasons:

The client has gone onto another website and found what they needThey have been contacted by another company and 'sold to' from that competitorThey have changed their mind and gone a different route

The term 'strike while the iron is hot' is an important one in the sales world and following up sales leads needs to be done within minutes, while the client still has the interest/topic in mind. The longer it is left, the client may then shift priority and put the query they enquiried about onto the back burner.

Chasing Sales Leads

All enquiries cost money, some from the advertising that they originated from, or from the marketing that happened to bring them in. Businesses that get lots of leads sometimes struggle in following them all up, older leads that have not responded to a follow up call/e-mail may get forgotten due to the more recent leads that have come in.

Organised businesses do record all sales leads on a database and then follow them up methodically based on a call back system. However sometimes this can also create problems in that the time spent loading leads up and call back attempts may mean that sales leads slip through the net.

Non sales people do struggle with follow up sales leads sometimes and often give up chasing clients after 1-2 attempts at calling; however research has shown that it takes an average of 7 attempts to get hold of a prospect.

Consider Outsourcing Sales Lead Followup

For businesses that only get in 2-3 business enquiries a day, outsourcing may not be best option, as a little organisation and tenacity is all that is needed to ensure that leads are followed up promptly and as few as possible fall through the net.

Businesses that get 10-20 sales enquiries through a day (or more with marketing events or exhibitions) may need to consider outsourcing the follow up to a telemarketing agency to handle and provide feedback on. This way all leads are going to be logged and put into a proper call back system to ensure that each one is chased and none slip through. There are always going to be leads that are hard to follow up (due to people being busy or not answering their phones) or dud leads, but the wasted leads should be kept to a minimum.

The main thing to remember is that sales leads need to be followed up within a few minutes of them enquiring, following up a lead hours or days will only lead to sales leads going cold and customers going to competitors.

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