Somewhere between making coffee today and reading these words, your company likely lost a phone call.
The number may be as low as two or possibly even ten. But regardless, every single time a customer dialed your company for help and then hung up because they were unable to reach anyone, that caller had a solution to an issue that would have paid them money and put their finger on the dial to ring the next business.
Lost calls like this are not just frustrating. They represent cash literally going out the door and, truth be told, many small business owners truly don’t know how much is being lost.
The Real Price of a Missed Call
Let’s do some quick napkin math. Say your average customer is worth $300 over the life of their relationship with your business. Now say you miss just three calls a day. That’s nine hundred dollars in potential revenue, every single day, gone!
Multiply that out over a month and you’re looking at serious money, the kind of money that pays salaries, covers rent, or funds the new equipment you’ve been eyeing. And this is a conservative estimate. For service businesses where one customer might be worth thousands, the numbers get downright painful.
Studies repeatedly demonstrate that a majority of missed telephone call opportunities in small businesses are never followed-up by either the customer who made the initial telephone contact or the business. The customer has moved on and the business will never know what opportunity was lost.
Additionally, the same cycle occurs again each day and the next day and so forth. The bad news is that a large portion of those missed telephone calls are from customers who are ready to spend money. Those were customers who identified a need, picked up the telephone to make a purchase decision and selected your company first.
You’ve won the hardest part of the challenge. Unfortunately, you also didn’t show up to claim your reward.
Why Customers Don’t Call Back
Most business owners and managers honestly fail to realize this: when a customer can’t reach a business by phone, the chances of that customer calling the business back to talk are extremely low.
We all do it. When we need a plumber or a barber or an electrician, we don’t wait for one particular business to contact us. We use technology (Google, Yelp, etc.) and then we start calling until someone answers.
It isn’t personal. It isn’t because they were loyal to another business. It’s because they want things easy and convenient. And in today’s world of instant gratification, convenience is essentially the standard for the way customers interact with businesses.
There are many reasons why customers don’t come back after being unable to reach a business via telephone. Customers are busy, and therefore, they have precious little time to continue to try to reach a business. The customer that didn’t get an answer from your business has already gone to another business that was able to answer the phone. The customer assumes that the other business is also unavailable, too busy, or too uninterested. Think about it: many customers hate leaving messages, because who does?
But regardless of the reason, the principle remains the same: unless you reach out to your customer first, you’ll likely never connect with them again.
Speed Is Everything in Lead Follow-Up
Here’s the most fascinating part. Even if a company does follow up on a lead, it’s really the timing of this response that will be a key determinant as to whether or not a conversion eventually occurs.
The sooner a company responds to a lead, the higher the likelihood for converting said lead into a customer. We’re also talking about responding in minutes versus hours here. A person who is contacted via phone within five minutes, for instance, is simply far more likely to become a customer compared to a contact who made it after thirty minutes.
And after an hour, the likelihood drops even further. By the end of the first day, you’re essentially back to square one and hoping that the individual hasn’t chosen to go with another company!
Intent naturally dissipates over time. At the point of initial contact, the individual who’s contacting your company is “hot”. This means that their motivation and willingness to take action are high. But as time passes and they wait for you to make contact, their opportunity to begin doubting themselves increases. Their focus shifts elsewhere. More opportunities appear.
In essence, “striking while the iron is hot” is not just a phrase that we say casually. It’s literally a proven sales strategy.
Of course, many small business owners cannot sit by the phone all day waiting for the perfect moment to strike each and every lead within five minutes. Small business owners have responsibilities beyond answering phones including but limited to: operating the business, providing service to existing customers, troubleshooting issues, taking breaks (i.e., grabbing lunch). Thus, manual follow up at lightening speed is unrealistic. For this reason alone, automation becomes an extremely valuable asset.
How to Actually Recover Missed Leads
The good news is, recovering missed leads isn’t complicated. It just requires a system that works whether you’re available or not.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Send an Instant Text Back
The moment someone’s call is missed, an automated SMS will be sent to that person. A simple and friendly SMS to let the person know that you have seen their call and ask if there is anything you can do for them is more than sufficient here.
This one action alone can recapture many of the missed leads as this will put the conversation back in motion prior to them calling your competition.
Capture Every Lead in One Place
Every missed call, web form submission, and inquiry should land in a single system where nothing falls through the cracks. When leads are scattered across voicemails, sticky notes, and email threads, follow-up simply becomes a guessing game. And when they’re organized in one spot, follow-up becomes a habit.
Automate the Follow-Up Sequence
Not every lead converts on the first contact. A good automated sequence keeps the conversation going over days or weeks with friendly check-ins, helpful information, and gentle nudges. Most businesses give up after one or two attempts, but the customers are often there, just waiting for the right moment.
Track What’s Working
When your follow-up is automated, you can actually see what’s converting and what isn’t. That data lets you fine-tune your approach instead of guessing.
Where Townsquare Interactive Comes In
This is what the Townsquare Interactive Business Management Platform was designed to help solve: missed calls automatically send a follow up text message, all leads are stored in one location (regardless of where they come from), and automated follow up sequences can continue to engage with a customer or client while you take care of your other responsibilities.
For any small business owner, this will provide fewer lost opportunities due to slower response times, and it will also provide an opportunity for each ring to be turned into a ringing cash register.
While many people may think that each call is valuable, there just needs to be a way to make sure that no call is lost!