Sales Response Times
Waiting too long to follow up on a lead can drastically affect a sales opportunity.
A recent blog post from marketing automation software company Marketo comments on how sales responds to leads. As it turns out, it's not a pretty picture. Marketo's blog post cites data from an independent lead response management study that says if sales waits even an hour to follow up on a lead from marketing it can ruin a sales opportunity.
While somewhat dated (2008) there's another study from Omniture that highlights some alarming findings about how sales follows up on leads from marketing. Here are the key points:
- Only 4.6 percent of the businesses use a strategy involving both phone and email
- Less than 5 percent called within 24 hours
- 19 hours 31 minutes was the average sales response time by email
- 36 hours 57 minutes was the average sales response time by phone
- 45.2% of companies sales teams never responded at all
The message is clear: speed does matter
