Service Providers

Strike while the leads are hot

How quickly do you respond to leads? Does response time matter? It definitely does. If a customer is hot to buy, you need to strike quickly. When a lead is cold, it will be much harder to make the sale.

Think about it, if someone calls, you need to call them back in a timely manner. If someone walks into your dealership and says he’s interested in buying a bike, you don’t turn your back and tell him good luck. You talk; you listen; you connect with your customer. It’s important to do the same thing on your website.

Just consider, “Businesses that tried to contact potential customers within an hour … were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead … as those that tried to contact the customer even an hour later — and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer,” reported in “The Short Life of Online Leads” from Harvard Business Review.

In the same article 47 percent of surveyed companies took more than 24 hours to respond (or worse, didn’t respond at all). Does your dealership fall into that group?

It’s easy to see where your leads come from in your dealership, but where do your leads come from on your website, and what can you do to manage them better?

Your website’s lead gathering hot spots

Contact us form – A contact us form connects you and your customers. It’s a place for customers to ask questions about your dealership, products and services.

Customer survey – A customer survey form allows your customer to give you feedback. Add a personal touch and contact them to ask about their answers.

Product-specific questions – Before a purchase, customers may need a little more information and may email you a product-specific question.

Request for quote – When your customers find the products or services they want, they may want a quote. People requesting quotes are typically close to buying, so treat these leads with care and respond to them quickly.

Send to a friend – According to a Nielsen study, 90 percent of Internet customers trust recommendations from people they know. Your customers can send product-specific pages to their friends.

Most good websites have forms like these to connect you and your customers. When a customer contacts you, it shows they’re warm and getting ready to buy. Strike while they’re hot and respond to your online leads in a timely manner.

Advertisement

Take all the forms and emails your customers use to contact you and push them all into one email address. It’s easier to keep your leads organized if you keep them all in one place. You can either set it up so all your form submissions and question-related emails go to the same place, or you can forward them all to a salesperson designated to handle your website’s leads.

For more, check out my corresponding blog “Are you letting your online leads grow cold?”

Like all members of the 50 Below team, Ben Borchert wants to help powersports dealers help their customers. Ben uses his skills as a Marketing Analyst and Writer to empower, educate, and advise dealers in the ever changing realm of online marketing. To view more of Ben’s articles visit www.50below.com/knowledge.

 

Website: http://www.50below.com/

 

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button