Even though the Internet is making us more impatient and shrinking attention spans, most businesses with an online presence still aren’t responding to email from their websites fast enough.

In many cases, up to 70 per cent of leads are wasted – partly through not being replied to, but more often because the reply is made too late to effectively continue the sales process.

And that offers a rich seam of opportunity to businesses that do respond quickly.

Consider how more than three quarters of sales go to the first company to respond and that a fast reply increases trust before you’ve even corresponded, and you start to see how important it is to respond quickly when leads come in from your website.

Moreover, the rule of fast reply applies to all email communication – a channel that is still growing faster than any other, and that according to recent research is the most valued by millennials.

The Proof is in the Data

Research published by, among others, Forbes, HBR and M.I.T. shows that a fast reply time when responding to emails is the key action in establishing trust and moving prospects more rapidly into the sales funnel.

Much of this research was carried out by Dr James Oldroyd – at the time a visiting research fellow at M.I.T. from the Kellogg School of Management.

Key findings of his work showed:

  • The odds of calling to contact a lead decrease by over ten times in the first hour of receiving a website inquiry.
  • The odds of calling to qualify a lead decrease by over six times in the first hour.
  • The odds of contacting a lead if called in five minutes are 100 times higher versus 30 minutes.
  • After 20 hours each attempt to contact a prospect actually damages the chances of making contact and qualifying a lead.

This is borne out by our own research which shows that when a fast reply time is shown on a website, inquiries tend to increase on average by 28 per cent.

This offers clear proof that users want to know whether it’s worth filling in that website contact form or composing an email.

Gearing Up Your Business for a Fast Reply Time

The answer to increasing website sales and lead generation through fast reply is to measure your response times … and have the tools in place to get back to prospects as soon after their inquiry as possible.

This has been the driver behind developing timetoreply – a surefire way of measuring and tracking incoming inquiries and then improving business performance through ensuring a fast reply.

Through our experience of helping businesses respond faster we’ve found a range of interesting metrics pointing to how and why people behave in response to a fast reply from a website inquiry.

The Number One Factor is Trust

Simply put, getting a fast reply shows prospects you care about their custom and are most likely to provide attentive and punctual service. Which is why that 28 per cent increase in inquiries happens – because a website that offers independent verification of a fast response is naturally assumed to be more trustworthy.

So when considering what you can do to increase your website’s commercial performance, look no further than a fast reply time when responding to emails.

It might just be the most powerful and cost-effective move you can make in boosting business performance as well.

Here’s What We’ve Got For You

Install timetorepy on your website and,

  1. Boost sales by measuring and improving your response times
  2. Increase customer engagement with your timetoreply Speedo
  3. Build your brand credibility with great customer reviews