INDUSTRY EXPERT
Ring-Ring-Hello-SPLAT-FAIL !
Are You BURNING New Prospects Calling Into Your Office ? There ’ s A Better Than 99 % Chance You ARE .
A friend and marketing colleague of mine who works with law firms recently shared an article revealing that 4 out of 10 prospect inquiries law firms get are not responded to at all .
I have to say , that figure surprised me . I thought it was much WORSE . Based on my own personal experience ( focus group of one ), more than 75 % of inquiries I make for various services are not responded to at all , and even when they are , there ’ s nearly no follow-up other than one email and maybe a phone call . Amazing . Everyone complains about not having enough leads , not having enough clients , and not having their advertising and marketing pay off . Yet , they pay no attention to how inbound leads are being handled in their office .
Of course , this happens in the MSP world , as well . At one of our training events for MSPs who want to get ramped up quickly on marketing , I have attendees team up with someone they didn ’ t come with and secret-shop each other . What ensues is a LOT of facepalming and anger . Nearly 80 % go to voicemail , and 10 % of those find problems with their answering systems : disconnecting people , routing to dead ends , etc . Of those that get someone to answer , the situation is often worse .
At the last event , one person called to play prospect , asking for help with a server issue . The salesperson on the other end of the line simply gave their hourly rate without asking for the name of the company who was calling or a phone number to call back ; she also didn ’ t attempt to book an appointment or offer to send more information . She just hung up . Read that again : She just gave the price and hung up . No lead capture , no attempt to book an appointment , no diagnostic questions . Another person had a tech who answered and became irate , demanding to know where they got the phone number . It was a new phone number that the owner had posted to the website a week before but hadn ’ t told anyone in the company .
Another said they “ didn ’ t do any projects outside of a managed services contract ,” and proceeded to give the name and phone number of a competitor . Most went to someone ’ s voicemail . All had horrible outcomes — and sadly , this is common .
1 . This Is COSTING You Big .
For starters , the No . 1 reason someone fires their current IT company and starts looking for a new one is lack of response . Here they are , googling you and at least a dozen other IT firms and MSPs , and they call you , only to get voicemail . You know they are either hanging up and calling the next Google listing or maybe leaving a message — maybe . Given that the average MSP lead costs upward of $ 300 to generate and that the average sale can be worth $ 15,000 –$ 20,000 in the first year , you ’ re burning that opportunity on the spot . If someone is ready enough to buy that they call your office , you ought to be jumping on that call within seconds , ready and eager to book them an appointment . There ’ s no point in spending money and effort on marketing to get a client or a prospect to call the office just to be burned . You only get paid if you get them across the finish line . If you want to put more money in your pocket this year without spending more on marketing , fix your phones .