David Tal is the CEO of Verse.io — a leader in lead conversion. Helping businesses engage, qualify and convert leads to sales opportunities.
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Businesses looking for a fast and easy way to qualify leads have typically called or emailed customers. But calling can be slow and labor-intensive. And your email is likely to end up in a spam or promotions folder.
Even worse, your potential customer probably won’t pick up the phone if they don’t recognize your number. The way people want contact from businesses has changed rapidly, but most companies have not kept up with consumer preferences. That will hurt your business soon if it isn’t reducing your close rate already.
Smartphones And Robocalls Have Changed The Way Consumers View Phone Calls
People in the U.S. were targeted by 45.9 billion robocalls in 2020, a 50% increase since 2017. That may be why 94% of people say they don’t pick up calls from unidentified numbers.
Plus, sales reps make just 1.3 calls, on average, to follow up on a lead. In a world where most consumers won’t pick up the phone unless you’re in their contacts, this is a setup for failure.
Spam calls aren’t the only problem with using the phone to qualify leads or respond to consumer questions. Some people, especially Millennials, consider it rude to call when you could send a text or an email instead. If your business relies solely on the phone to contact consumers, consider these sobering statistics from a 2020 survey:
• 88% of Millennials would rather text than talk on the phone
• Phone calls make 52% of Millennials anxious
• 60% of Millennials don’t like to make calls, even in situations where they have no other option
• Gen Z hates talking on the phone as much as Millennials, and even 23% of Boomers feel anxiety about phone calls
If that’s not enough to make you consider other options for contacting your customers, new FCC regulations will make cold calling much more challenging.
STIR/SHAKEN Throws An Unknown Into The Mix
To crack down on the avalanche of robocalls, the FCC has developed standards to authenticate calls and make spoofing harder: Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards. Commonly known as STIR/SHAKEN, this new caller ID authentication technology is already tagging purchased phone numbers and call centers with international IP addresses as spam calls.
There is a phone solution for businesses that want or need to contact customers by phone: branded caller ID. Branded calling displays your business name and a promotional message, so the consumer knows they aren’t being spammed.
However, even branded calls won’t be well-received by many people who don’t like to talk on the phone, especially those under 35. It’s time for businesses to turn to new ways to contact consumers.
How Do Consumers Want To Be Contacted?
Many brands have turned to social media for engagement and even customer service. However, social is not usually the best option when you need to qualify a lead in response to a query.
As noted above, the telephone is no longer a desirable way to reach consumers. Twilio’s 2020 State of Customer Engagement Report found that people no longer trust the phone because of the onslaught of robocalls.
Email marketing is a valuable tool, but it’s not optimal for qualifying leads. For one thing, responding to a customer inquiry within 24 hours increases your chances of closing a sale by 6,000% (yes, you read that right). But 38% of U.S. residents check their email once a day or less, and another 20% check only a few times a day.
So how can businesses reach out quickly and effectively?
A Better Way To Qualify Leads
To hit potential customers with a message that they will see and appreciate while your business is still fresh in their minds, SMS text messaging is an excellent option. A Dell case study found that 98% of consumers read a text message within a few minutes of receiving it. Only 22% picked up an email in that time frame.
Businesses have an understandable reluctance to approach consumers via SMS messaging. You might think of texting as a private domain where friends communicate through emojis and slangy shorthand.
But consumers don’t view texts from businesses as intrusive. An SMS gets right to the point, the receiver can skim it and it’s easy to respond quickly. Plus, by using an AI tool, businesses can respond by text at any hour, making your online presence truly 24/7.
Perhaps that is why texts get a response rate that is 209% higher than calls, emails or Facebook messages.
If you’re not using SMS — to engage and qualify leads, send out offers and stay in touch with customers — you’re missing one of the most significant current marketing trends. It is probably time to add texting to your marketing and lead qualification toolkit.
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