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Configero was named among the top 100 companies with the fastest lead response times after Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2012.

via Forbes.com Today we announced the fifth annual results of the largest research study ever done on the response practices of companies to their own internet inquiries. The announcements were initially made to companies at Dreamforce 2012, the industry leading trade show of salesforce.com, and arguably the top sales companies in the world.

But they are leaving a lot on the table and most don’t realize it.
 
You see, years ago we pioneered some research that is now changing the landscape of web-based demand generation and inside sales. With the help of Dr. James Oldroyd, we found that if a company can respond to a lead within 5 minutes of it being generated, versus waiting even 30 minutes, the odds of contacting the person at that company are 100 times higher. More importantly, if a company responds in the same 5 minutes, the odds of  qualifying that person are 21 times higher. And by qualifying we mean setting an appointment to enter the sales process.

Just last year we duplicated that same research again with a study 10 times the size of the original. It was conducted again with Dr. Oldroyd and Dave Elkington leading our own InsideSales.com team, but also with Kristina McElheran, whom I had the pleasure of meeting with last week at the HarvardBusiness School. They found similarly, though less dramatic, the odds of contacting a person were 7 times as likely if a contact attempt was made within the first hour, versus waiting one hour later. In addition the odds of contacting were 60 times as likely in the first hour versus waiting 24 hours to make a call attempt.

In this same 2011 research, a similar audit was performed on 2,241 U.S. companies that measured how long each took to respond to an internet inquiry.

  • 37% responded in 1 hour or less
  • 16% responded within 1 to 24 hours
  • 24% responded after 24 hours
  • 23% of the companies never responded
  • Average response time of companies responding within 30 days, was 42 hours.
The point has also been made in earlier research mentioned here on Forbes that companies are leaving 71% of the value they get from leads on the table.

How did we do the research?

Two months prior to the show, the InsideSales.com research team submitted a fictitious web lead that looks real enough to get past lead scoring algorithms of even the very best marketing automation companies (Marketo, Eloqua, and Act-On are all our customers). The leads have a compelling identity, website, phone number, and email address that is a corporate domain (not a Gmail or Hotmail account, for example). There is a big debate about what is more important: lead scoring (which takes some time), or immediate response.

Then the patent-pending technology tracks how fast companies respond by both email and phone call attempts, voice messages left, and emails sent. The system then pulls all of this information into a benchmark report for the individual company. All of these individual reports are available in .pdf format by contacting an InsideSales.com representative.

“The average response time dropped over 18.2% this year for the first time in five years of doing this,” said Dave Elkington, CEO and Founder of InsideSales.com. “Companies are starting to realize that immediacy and persistency in responding to leads make a huge impact on the results that come from those leads. This improvement appears to coincide with the recent wide spread adoption in enterprise companies of inside sales teams and lead response practices. We are excited that our publicity and educational efforts are helping companies wring more value from their marketing spend.”

Company Name

Rank

Call Time

Attempts

InsideSales.com*

1

0:00:17

15

Outrigger Enterprises

2

0:00:56

1

MIR3 Inc

3

0:01:08

2

Light Industries Services Corporation

4

0:01:16

4

Genco

5

0:01:17

2

Cask Technologies

6

0:01:20

2

Aflac Key Accounts

7

0:01:30

6

Synaxis

8

0:01:31

2

Accelrys Inc

9

0:01:52

1

Chase Paymentech

10

0:01:57

9

Enterprise Strategy Group

11

0:02:05

3

Paramount Equity Mortgage

12

0:02:13

6

Engine Yard

13

0:02:25

5

TimeTrade Systems Inc

14

0:02:26

6

novation Capital

15

0:02:30

11

Vindicia

16

0:03:20

6

CPI Security Systems

17

0:04:07

4

Widen Enterprises Inc

18

0:04:42

4

A1 Foundation Crack Repair, Inc

19

0:04:45

4

Katun Corp

20

0:04:45

1

Novell Inc

21

0:04:48

1

Teplis Travel Service

22

0:05:09

2

Athenahealth Inc

23

0:05:31

4

Keystone Business Services

24

0:05:47

5

MegaPath Inc

25

0:05:54

10

Union Pacific Railroad

26

0:06:05

2

Train by Cell

27

0:06:44

1

Virtual Radiologic Corp

28

0:06:50

8

ShowingTime

29

0:07:01

2

Baynote Inc

30

0:07:14

2

Experian QAS

31

0:07:25

6

IDES Inc

32

0:07:26

2

DataCore Software

33

0:07:27

8

CS Stars

34

0:07:37

2

Amcom Software Inc

35

0:07:50

4

First Advantage Corp

36

0:07:53

8

Omtool Inc

37

0:08:22

1

AIROOM

38

0:08:26

2

Moose Exhibits

39

0:08:39

1

IDT Corp

40

0:08:44

2

123 Signup

41

0:09:02

7

Dynamix Group

42

0:09:07

2

FatStax

43

0:09:07

1

Jitterbit Inc

44

0:09:09

21

ServiceMax

45

0:09:19

8

CyanGate

46

0:09:36

2

Comdata Corp

47

0:10:06

2

Vocalocity

48

0:11:11

12

eTrigue Corp

49

0:12:08

8

Intuit

50

0:12:18

4

M5 Networks

51

0:12:43

30

AXIS Data Solutions

52

0:13:27

3

PFSweb Inc

53

0:13:34

5

Configero, LLC

54

0:13:50

9

Dayton Progress Corp

55

0:13:51

2

Demand Metric

56

0:13:57

5

Insight Communications

57

0:14:01

4

Digium

58

0:14:08

6

Salesforce

59

0:14:18

13

Informatica Corp

60

0:14:30

26

Faro Technologies

61

0:14:43

3

AA-ISP

62

0:14:46

2

IT Computer Support of New York

63

0:15:08

4

The Connection

64

0:15:36

2

ForceBrain

65

0:15:44

10

Salesgenie.com

66

0:16:01

7

SkyeTek Inc

67

0:16:18

4

ZOLL Medical Corp

68

0:16:25

3

AutoRevo Ltd

69

0:16:38

5

FierceMarkets

70

0:16:54

1

Akken Inc.

71

0:17:04

4

eVestment Alliance

72

0:17:25

1

Polymer Packaging Inc.

73

0:17:58

2

Powercode Systems LLC

74

0:18:00

3

Cendyn

75

0:18:00

5

Computer Generated Solutions Inc

76

0:18:14

2

Act-On Software

77

0:19:02

7

Dennis K Burke Inc

78

0:19:28

1

Marin Software

79

0:19:45

6

Burdette Knoll

80

0:19:57

3

Rasmussen College

81

0:20:16

11

eGain

82

0:21:11

2

Belcan

83

0:22:12

1

Marketo

84

0:22:24

18

Keynote Systems

85

0:22:34

3

Critical Mention

86

0:22:43

4

Leads 360

87

0:22:59

10

Guide By Cell

88

0:23:05

6

SteelBrick

89

0:23:12

18

Sanbolic Inc

90

0:23:17

8

Evotem LLC

91

0:23:28

4

WireSpring Technologies Inc

92

0:24:32

14

ABM Industries Inc

93

0:24:44

1

Zipwall, LLC

94

0:24:57

2

Pervasive

95

0:25:08

18

LexisNexis

96

0:25:16

4

Bayshore Solutions

97

0:26:45

2

Patientkeeper Inc

98

0:26:54

1

Cold Pack System

99

0:27:19

2

Juniper Networks

100

0:27:25

5

Network Hardware Resale LLC

101

0:27:34

4

*We added an additional listing in the Top 100 to replace our own InsideSales.com team; which responded in 17 seconds and made 15 contact attempts.

Of particular note for persistency are M5 solutions, Jitterbit, Informatica, Marketo, SteelBrick, and Pervasive. Way to be “pleasantly persistent,” a value among today’s busy executives!

Think about it, the average contact ratio is 10 to 11%, which means you need to make 9 or 10 calls to ensure you reach that busy decision maker.

Note, though we recommend lots of calls, we only recommend 2-3 emails, and 2-3 voice mails left, so that you don’t become a “pest.”

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