You thought you were doing everything right. You contacted all of your prospective leads promptly and had an informative, engaging plan. However, at the end of the day your success rate is not where you’d like it to be.
Are you optimizing your chances of closing leads? You might think you are, but there is strategy involved. Looking at analysis and data metrics can be helpful in understanding what goes on behind a sale. Sales leads are an investment and in order to maximize your success rate, it is imperative that you take advantage of all possible opportunities.
Never undervalue the importance of persistence. The biggest mistake an agent can make is to give up on a lead too early. The first phone call leaves you with a mere 39% contact probability – over 60% of your contactable leads are too busy to engage. However, a second call attempt increases your chances to 72%. Impressive, right? Especially when most agents don’t bother to contact 50% of leads more than once. Essentially, this means that the more calls an agent makes, the more potential there is for overall conversion success.
What’s the Optimal Number of Calls to Make?
At some point, the chance of contact success does level off. However, the number of calls an agent should make is more than expected. The ideal number of calls it takes to close a lead is 6.
Research from Velocify illustrates that 6 contact attempts leaves an agent with a 93% reach probability. Any leads with less than 6 calls should continue to be sought out aggressively.
Consider this. If most agents stop calling after one attempt, there’s less competition. With repeated outreach, the chance of converting a prospect grows immensely. Behind this number is simple logic. Leads are often unavailable on the first attempt and are quite cautious or wary. They have concerns and are unlikely to commit.
Following up is integral to an agent’s success. With repeated calls, leads often warm up and agents can further grasp what the customer is looking for. With this in mind, here are some tips to optimize your leads after contact.
Tips to Close the Sale:
- Educate
Agents can educate prospects on the value of their insurance product. Be sure to fulfill any information requests once in contact with a lead.
- Develop Trust
Agents should always do what they can to develop trust with leads. Engage with your customers and be respectful. Offer up information and share knowledge. Be prepared to answer all questions completely.
- Have a Closing Strategy
Always have a standard process or a primary closing strategy. You don’t always have to follow the plan but it can be helpful to have options to resort to.
This ideal call number can also be used to help understand diminishing returns. Be ambitious but practical, aggressive but respectful. Engage, follow up promptly, and stick to a process. Contacting leads repeatedly greatly increases your likelihood of reaching them. Remember this and watch your sales grow.
Photo Credit (top image): HA1-000343, Eddi, CC