Speed to Lead: Does It Matter? What's the Effect?

"Dealers are missing strong opportunities to raise ROI from lead generation and hit sales KPI's. Analysing speed to lead is important for getting the most out of every lead. Data shows speed being a key factor to many customers experience ratings and it's important dealers use the opportunity to optimise every lead, particularly with the use of assistive tools. As customers continue to enquire with multiple dealers it's crucial that engaging leads happens in the quickest and most efficient way to take the consumer out of the marketplace" Ben Archer, Shift Digital AI.

Think about it, when a customer is eager enough to submit an enquiry that’s the point they’re at an all-time high.

Interested, excited, thinking about the possibilities of living with that vehicle.

Every minute which passes after the enquiry their interests begin to diminish.

“Is this car for me?"

"Maybe it’s a bit expensive"

"Should I go for something else"

"Has another dealer got a better offer?”

Imagine being in a dealership and nobody talking to you. How long would you really wait before thinking they don’t deserve your business?

Speed to lead accounts for 78% of all sales and doing this in under 1 minute can increase your conversions by up to 391% - Source of information (AM-Online & A Velocify Survey)

The point I’m trying to make is… Speed to lead is important.

That Important it could be the difference between you selling a vehicle or not — so prioritise it!

So how fast should you be?

Analysts will tell you the “golden window” is 5 minutes and they wouldn’t be wrong, however your ability to qualify a lead becomes significantly harder the longer you wait.

So in this digital age even 5 minutes might be too long.

But you want to achieve the best.. right?

So what’s the solution?

1. Understand where your current business costs you the most.

Think about it, how much are you really costing your business? Generating leads but not being efficient enough to contact them in the newly reformed “golden window” timeframe.

Your customers want the fastest response and whoever can give it them in under 1 minute has a 391% improved chance of getting the customer to convert.

The numbers stack up.

Losing 1 deal a week with an average profit of £600 = £28.8k per year cost in missed profits.

Each of your sales team lose 1 a week with an average of 5 sales execs…

Now you’re missing £144,000 a year.

Once you know the numbers you can make the change.

2. Automatically engage with your customers in seconds

As we established already, some say 5 minutes, some say longer, others say quicker.

It comes down to the question. Do you want the best chance of bringing that sale through your company?

If the answer is yes then speed to lead remains important and now instant.

Have your team work around the clock, answering every lead within 1 minute of the customer submission.

Sounds impossible?

By harnessing the use of AI your assistant engages your leads personally, answering initial questions and understanding how your customers will want to proceed.

Weeding out the qualified from the unqualified and saving your team countless hours of chasing rainbows.

Giving them serious leads, ready to progress.

3. Save your teams with automatic task creation and reminders.

From experience sales teams need support, and reminders are key.

One of the biggest factors for not closing more of your leads is through follow ups. In fact it accounts for more than 23% of all lost leads. - Source of information (LLCBuddy)

Sales teams are busy and more time than not, they’re distracted by the new shiny lead or the customer who is about to purchase.

Obviously every lead should be followed up with — Our goal here is to minimise "lead leakage" to competitors followed up with negative reviews about why a customer purchased elsewhere.

The point here is your teams will miss follow ups, it’s a statistic that’s remained consistent.

A simple reminder can give your team the push they need to take the action and this can be done simply.

Here are a few ways we've seen:

Shared calendars for follow up opportunities - Free, easy to use and great for traceability
AI system reminders - Low cost, always on time, reliable, Shift Digital AI can help with this
CRM Systems with scheduled reminders - Good for those consistently active on CRM.

4. Track your results

Everything requires traceability. Knowing what you’re doing is working.

How you decide to track your results really is down to you.

For us? We built a simple analogy.

At the start of each month we understand all lead statuses, calculating how many leads were generated vs deals closed.

Left with the lost deals we calculate the percentage of deals lost.

Month on Month if the percentage decreases then you're on the right track!

Here's the steps we use to calculate:

Check total leads generated for that month.
How many sales were generated from these leads?
Once you know the status of all leads, understand the reason behind any leads which were lost (this part is vital)
Now you're ready to calculate.
Take your average profit and times it by the number of leads lost and this will give you your total missed profit for the month - Keep hold of this number.
From this we can now easily find the % of missed sales from the total leads.

Using this monthly provides strong understanding of the leads you're generating, the reason for lead leakage and the importance of speed to lead.

So does speed to lead really matter in 2024?

Simple answer? Yes. More than ever.

With new tools constantly evolving and AI being here to stay, instant communication is a thing of the now.

Truth is, however fast you may be right now, if you’re not using assistive tools then someones definitely faster.

There’s a few takeaways I hope you can take from this:

The statistics don’t lie, the faster you get to a lead the more chance you have of closing it
Instead of focusing on creating more leads for your team to close, consider what you can do to improve your current %
Finally if you want to go far the steps are easy and unlock a world of results you couldn’t previously access.

Want to know how we can help you? You can find more via Shift Digital AI or Book a call to learn more

We hope you were able to take value and enjoy this article on speed to lead. Shift Digital AI