Fast Response Times Are Essential! Here’s Why

How quick­ly do you answer the phone when cus­tomers call you? Do you send them through a call tree first? When you get an email for a quote, do you reply back with­in min­utes, hours, or days? What about inquiries online, such as Face­book Mes­sen­ger or Google My Busi­ness? Do you have some­one who mon­i­tors these chan­nels to answer ques­tions and book appoint­ments with light­ning speed? 

More than ever before, fast response times make ALL the dif­fer­ence, set­ting your con­tract­ing team apart from com­peti­tors. This is espe­cial­ly true as your tar­get audi­ence begins to include the younger gen­er­a­tion — one that’s quick­er to send a text or direct mes­sage than to pick up the phone.

The 2020 ver­sion of ​“the ear­ly bird gets the worm” could be: the faster response time gets the lead and sale. 

We’re Start­ing the Era of Mes­sages Marketing

Have you noticed how many ​“chat” options are avail­able now for cus­tomer service?

Ama­zon is one of the best, offer­ing live chat around the clock with a REAL per­son. They ​“get” it! Apple is fol­low­ing suit as well, mak­ing it super easy to con­nect, ask a ques­tion, or get tech support. 

Lead gen­er­a­tion plat­forms like Face­book, Google, and Yelp are putting a high­er pre­mi­um on speed­i­er respons­es, post­ing a company’s ​“aver­age response time” for all the world to see. Today’s con­sumer sees this as a mark of your over­all cus­tomer ser­vice, and you’re reward­ed for tak­ing it seriously.

Why Is This Such a Big Deal?

Here’s the key. Ready?

Con­sumers are doing their research online more than talk­ing to friends, fam­i­ly, or neigh­bors when they need work done on their homes. They will read blogs, online reviews, check out your social pro­files, watch videos, etc. Then, when they feel com­fort­able, they might pick up the phone, text, fill out a form, or chat with your company. 

This lead ger­mi­na­tion peri­od could take min­utes, days, weeks, or months before a con­sumer will be ready to get an esti­mate — it’s hard to say, and depends on their spe­cif­ic sense of urgency and sit­u­a­tion. We’ve also been hear­ing that con­sumers are not nec­es­sar­i­ly get­ting 3 – 5 bids any­more. Many of them are wait­ing to find a com­pa­ny that is respon­sive, pro­fes­sion­al, and offers peace of mind, start to finish.

So, the long game? Keep your con­tent fresh, push those reviews, and keep a con­sis­tent, vis­i­ble pres­ence online.

The short game? Respond to inquiries FAST.

Get­ting Prac­ti­cal: What Should You Do?

The first step is to take this data seri­ous­ly. It’s not a trend that’s going to fiz­zle, espe­cial­ly as the younger gen­er­a­tion grows a bit old­er and will need your ser­vices. This is a new, grow­ing mar­ket, and it’s not going anywhere. 

That’s right: you’ll be pro­vid­ing ser­vices for mil­len­ni­als soon, if not already! 

The sec­ond step? Cre­ate more ways to con­nect direct­ly with cus­tomers: live chat, email inquiries, Face­book Mes­sen­ger, direct tex­ting, and Google My Busi­ness. This is how the major­i­ty of your cus­tomers will want to con­nect — most aren’t thumb­ing through the yel­low pages and call­ing you direct­ly anymore. 

Final­ly, staff those out­lets! Real­is­ti­cal­ly, the major­i­ty of our clients can’t have a team (or even one office per­son) ded­i­cat­ed to han­dling mes­sage and text con­ver­sa­tions. We get that. But, it IS impor­tant to have a sys­tem in place for DAI­LY checks and respons­es. And, if a client fills out an email form, let them know how quick­ly you’ll respond. Set­ting those expec­ta­tions is essential. 

If you can’t han­dle it all in-house, you may want to out­source it, like a call cen­ter for text and direct mes­sage leads.

Stay Tuned for More Conversations!

This is such an impor­tant top­ic — too much for one blog. We’ll be shar­ing more con­tent soon, includ­ing a tighter focus on major oppor­tu­ni­ties like Face­book Mes­sen­ger, SMS mes­sag­ing, and more.

Have a ques­tion in the mean­time? Let us know!