Time to Target – Improve Your Initial Customer Engagement Rates

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Read time: 2 Minutes

Today, I’m focusing on an aspect of inbound lead generation where quality and speed can make a difference.

The difference between the lead choosing to go with you for your offerings over someone else.

I have a 5-minute exercise that can calm any nerves in your system so that you can properly respond. All you need is your phone.

Find out if you’re good to go, or if you need to address any issues.

Let’s dance.

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Why Should I Care?

When a lead reaches out to you, you need to be able to track this lead to determine whether it is of any value to your company, your offerings, your partnerships, etc.

Not every lead is ultimately worth pursuing, however, you want to make sure that the leads that do come in can be reviewed in a timely matter so that you can get back to the lead, and internally, you can make a decision to Go/No-Go.

For the lead to have reached out to you via your website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, left a voicemail, or a card with important information at a tradeshow, you must have been top of mind for someone/somewhere/I need something.

Why wait? Who’s responsibility is it?

Don’t let it slip your mind and move quickly and effectively to respond to the lead, especially if that lead needs you….now.

So let’s dive into ensuring you have a system set up to engage effectively.

Put Yourself in the Lead’s Shoes

Let’s role-play here. And for the sake of this exercise let’s say you don’t have an existing relationship with each other and this is a pure cold reach-out exercise.

Say you are a $50 Million/year construction company and you are interested in teaming partners for an upcoming bid so you reach out to a firm via their website to want to talk with their sales team.

So you go to the website of a potential teaming partner, fill out the information on their website for contact, and hit submit.

What goes through your mind?

• How long will it take for someone to contact me? Time is of the essence!

• Who is going to contact me? Is it the right person?

• It is easy for me to contact them? Is the contact information easy to find?

You might search around a little bit, and check out their material online, but ultimately, you want to talk with someone.

Then you go back to your day-to-day business. And then your personal life.

If you really want to work with them, you’ll call the number on the website, in the hope of getting a hold of someone, and ultimately you might get the answering machine, which you leave a voicemail.

So, now it’s a waiting game. You either have other partners you want to reach out to, and then move on.

If it’s a teaming position you need just one partner, and a prompt return is very much appreciated. You will greatly value the potential partner being on top of their game.

If your lead request goes out and it takes several days (or weeks) to get a response. How will you look at their slow response time? If they are this slow to get back to you now, what will they be like when you actually start working with them?

Set the tone up front. Be on your A game.

Where are You Today?

One of the most important aspects of understanding your inbound leads is making sure that you are set up to respond promptly.

One way to effectively test that method is to…test it yourself.

I don’t recommend using your current work email, have a trusted friend or colleague, run this exercise on your behalf. Have them submit a professional email inquiry or a LinkedIn message. See how it goes.

You can even make a phone call to your own company. Jeff Bezos did it here. It was a great lesson in never making assumptions that everything works like it’s supposed to.

The most important reason to test this is that you want to make sure that not only the company is set up to understand how the workflow is done, but also how to effectively and efficiently respond to it.

I’ve done this with my clients and it is one of the first actions that I take.

Never assume that the lead wants to wait 7 days for a response. There could have been a pressing issue that needed to be resolved early and you took too long.

Actionable Steps to Take

Some might say that this is a marketing discussion to take this on, others might say it’s sales, and some might say the webmaster needs to take care of it, or its operations. At the end of the day, it is a critical component of the company to be responsive to…the customer.

A lead doesn’t care about any of this, they just have a need and want to talk with someone on your end.

Here are a few recommended steps to take to make sure you can be on your game with inbound leads:

1. Test your inbound lead processes

   1. See where you’re strong, where you can improve, and what needs your attention

   2. Do you have dedicated points of contact to reach out to inquiries? Do they have scripts or is it free-flowing? Personalization is key.

2. Setup Automations to say you’ll get back within 24-48 business hours

   1. Speed will win

   2. Here is what some companies are doing with customer service

3. Website – Make sure the lead fills out enough information that you can direct the workflow to the right points of contact within your company (i.e., sales, marketing, technical, executive, etc.)

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – Make sure all leads are being pulled into your CRM. Track and follow all updates in one location

5. Chatbots – AI Chatbots can be an incredible feature and game-changer for your company. They can sometimes resolve many inquiries that do not need human intervention.

Pack Some Additional Punch

When in doubt, websites are your default contact tool. People will lose business cards, we will forget where some people work, and phone numbers and email change all the time, but websites and contact pages will reign supreme.

You can only be in one place at a time, and take one call at a time, but inquiries will come at any time.

Continue to grow your company, and build a process that allows you to give customers amazing customer service when you are not front and center.

I’ve even heard people tell me “My customer doesn’t use our website to reach out to us.” Well, then how do your leads come in? You can do the following:

• Use SEMRush - See your website traffic - It will tell you how many people are visiting your website

• Test your most utilized channels of lead engagement - Account Management, referrals, etc. Strengthen each channel

Time is the name of the game.

Separate yourself from the rest of the competition. Not every lead will be worth chasing, but for those that are you want to make sure you position yourself to win as quickly as possible.

When you set the tone from the start that you are responsive to your lead, you are upfront, attentive, and want to kick off a new relationship on the right foot. You are doing a lot of

A 5-minute test can do a lot to set you up for impactful business today, tomorrow, and the future.

Let me know how it goes!

Go out there and crush it this week.

Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

1. Unlocking Hidden Potential - Reconnecting with Past Clients for Explosive Growth - Check out my free eBook on how you can find hidden gems in your past clients and help you crush your sales goals.

2. Build your Sales CRM - Download our free Sales eBook on How Your Sales Team Can Maximize Your CRM Tool. Whether it’s Hubspot, Salesforce, or another CRM tool, make sure you leverage it to your advantage.

3. Awesome Sales Resources - Transform your sales engagement and capabilities across Social Selling, CRM, Lead Generation, Enablement, and more.

4. Cribworks Advisor Program - Want more than just resources? Reach out to me and see if our Advisor Program can help you grow your business.