Before I get rolling, I would like to give a shot out to Washington DC Real Estate expert Kevin Koitz. Kevin was kind enough to pass on some of the numbers I used in this blog as well as bring to light the notion that I may have been misunderstood as a being a advocate of calling leads later rather than earlier. Thanks again Kev, hopefully this post clears that up as that is definitely not what I meant.
In my last blog post, I talked about effective email communication and made the statement that the focus of every email should be on getting the lead on the phone. This may have been a little confusing as it was understood by a few of you to mean not to call until you have emailed. NOT THE CASE. Email is a measure taken as a means of contact when a number isn’t provided in the lead info or as a follow up after a call or voicemail. Email is also a way to supplement the amount of attempted contacts without inundating your lead with a large amount of phone calls. With that said, an email should never be considered a replacement for a good sales call. Calling web leads is vitally important to the success of the conversion process.
Be the First to Call Your Lead
Over 65% of leads that have been successfully converted are done on the first call. Why is this? Simple, homebuyers visit several websites when searching for a home. On average, a real estate web consumer will submit lead form on 3-5 of your competitor’s websites. The real estate consumer will more than likely respond to the first (sometimes the second) call put into them by agents responding to the inquiry. As for the third, fourth or fifth . . . they are simply out of luck as the consumer is tires of receiving calls relatively quickly and become non-responsive.
Call As Soon as Humanly Possible!
Waiting longer than 5 minutes to call a lead after a lead form/registration has been submitted has a 46% lower rate of qualification than those called in UNDER 5 minutes. In fact, the under 5 minute response vs. the over 30 minute response drops your chances of converting the lead 100 times! In addition to increasing your conversion ratio, it helps build rapport with the customer generating the idea that you will be responsive to their needs.
Weekends and After Hours Calling
The contact rate increases by almost 20% and the qualification rate increases by 30% when calling after hours. No big surprise here as most people that can afford to buy homes usually have jobs and are more often than not working from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. Even if you were lucky enough to make contact with a lead during business hours there is frequently less focus and less time for a successful sales call as your lead is probably in the middle of something.
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