Lead Response Report 2014 - Download the full report here: http://www.insidesales.com/2014-lead-response-report
Summary - Learn how companies are responding to their leads
50% of buys choose the vendor that responds first. So the question is, are you beating your competitors to the punch?
The InsideSales.com research team tested over 14,000 sales teams by "secret shopping" their websites by submitting a lead and then recording how quickly and persistently each sales teams responded.
Download this benchmark report and learn the best practices for lead response.
About The Research Team:
James W. Phillips, Lead Researcher - Business Intelligence Analyst at InsideSales.com
Dave Elkington - CEO and Co-Founder of InsideSales.com
Ken Krogue, President and Co-Founder of InsideSales.com
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About us
History
• Founded in 2004 – D. Elkington & K.
Krogue
• HQ in Silicon Slopes, Utah
• $40m in venture investment
• 350 employees
• 3 years of 100%+ annual revenue growth
Industry leadership
• #5 in U.S. software job creation – Inc.
• #2 paid app on Salesforce App Exchange
• Top 100 private companies – Always On
• 1000+ business-to-business customers
• 17 patents in web comms & predictive
analytics
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Background
Lead Response Management
• Faster response=better contact
• Persistent response=better contact
What is the status of lead response management for American businesses?
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Methodology
Data
• 14,061 companies tested
• Inc. 5000, Fortune 500, and many
tradeshow affiliates
Analysis
• Test leads submitted using alias contact info
• Company responses tracked using
InsideSales.com developed software
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Web Lead
Response
Status of
American
Businesses
9,538
4,031
183 309
Audited (68%)
No Webform (29%)
Bad Webform (1%)
No Website (2%)
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Key Stats:
Immediacy
and
Persistency
Median first phone response
time
• 3 hours and 8 minutes
Persistency
• 4,472 of 9,538 companies (47%) did
not respond
• Average number of any response
type was 2.2
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First Phone
Response
Times
121
367
197
236228
105
229
165
118
94
121
162
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
NumberofCompanies
First Phone Response Time
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Company Size
Comparisons
0:48
1:38
1:28
0:00
0:15
0:30
0:45
1:00
1:15
1:30
1:45
1-300 employees 301-2500
employees
2501+
employees
ResponseTime(hours:minutes)
Median First Response Time Overall
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Company Size
Comparisons
2:22
16:56
19:34
0:00
3:00
6:00
9:00
12:00
15:00
18:00
21:00
1-300 employees 301-2500
employees
2501+
employees
ResponseTime(hours:minutes)
Median First Phone Response Time
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Company Size
Comparisons
64%
57%
58%
50%
55%
60%
65%
70%
1-300 employees 301-2500
employees
2501+
employees
ResponseTime(hours:minutes)
Percentage of Test Leads that Received at Least One
Response
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What you
need to know
• Understand. Effective lead response
management will grow your business.
• Identify. Know where your company stands
compared to industry, company size, and
overall standards.
• Change. Using the right tools, improve your
lead response strategy.
SaaS Provider of the Year – AAISPTop 100 Private Companies – AlwaysOn
After attempting to submit a test lead and tracking the response patterns of 14,061 companies, we found these trends of the web lead response status of American businesses.Interestingly, only about 68% of American businesses have the ability to respond to someone’s online submitted information, which shows an expression of interest or “raising a hand”
Of the 9538 companies that received a Web lead, we identified 2142 (or 22%) of whom responded by phone at least once.This graph shows the number of companies at each time of the first phone response. For example we noticed that of those who did respond by phone (the 2142 or 22% of those tested) 367 of these companies followed up with their first phone response in the 5-30 minute time window from when they received the test lead.
This graph shows the number of times companies attempted to contact their leads, using any follow up medium, voice or email. Of the 9538 companies that received a Web lead, we observed that 4,472 (or 47%) did not respond and 2,329 (or 24%) only responded once.The median number of contact attempts was 1.
This graph shows the number of times companies attempted to contact their leads using the phone exclusively. Of the 9538 companies that received a Web lead, we observed 2,142 (or 22%) responded by phone at least once.The median number of contact attempts was 1.From this research we can conclude that less than 25% of companies who receive a Web lead will respond by phone. Of the companies that do respond by phone, about a third (779 of 2142, or 36%) respond by phone only once.
Regarding first response, email is the primary medium that companies use to respond to leads. 70% of companies make their initial response through email and 30% make their initial response through phone. Of all the initial phone responses, 25% of them leave a voicemail as well.
Regarding the medium used for all responses, we noticed that email remains the primary medium that companies use to respond to leads.Email still remains the preferred lead response medium, comprising 70% of all responses. The remaining 30% used phone calls to respond. Overall, 16% of the responses called and left a voicemail, and 14% called and did not leave a voicemail.
One of the key items to understand from this research is the standard lead response management for companies that you compare to. In this section we describe industry comparisons, and we follow with company size comparisons afterward.From this information you can know if your company is above or below par.
The first key point is that companies need to understand and accept the reality that effective lead management will grow your business. Having sluggish responses to web leads is damaging your revenue. The second key point is that companies can use this research to identify where they stand.It’s important for companies to step back for a moment and check where they stand compared to other businesses. In doing so, companies can identify strong points and weak points and know best where to focus more effective lead response strategies.The third, and perhaps most important, is to act. There are tools available that will help build effective lead management. (Insert a customer testimonial about here)
The product we are most well known for is the powerdialer for Salesforce. Just because a tool can place phone calls or send emails doesn’t mean it accelerates salesPowerDialer for salesforce offers key way to accelerate your teams performace let’s take a look at a few:Local Presence – One of the oldest problems in sales in simply getting a hold of the people. Every time you place a call into a north American market, you will have a local number reflected to your prospect. We’ve seen our customers increase their contact rates by up to 82