Pest Management Professional, October 2016
PMP BusIness Planner 2017 the early bird catches the sale online leads demand an immediate response heres how to ensure you dont lose prospects By Harvey goldglantz Contributor I f you think your company is receiving a good return on investment ROI from your online leads think again Research demonstrates that this is probably not the case In fact by the time most companies respond to online leads the potential customer has already given his or her business to someone else Simply put the driving factor to closing internet leads is speed Small business owners often point the finger at limited staff as their excuse for slow response time but the truth is this is where they need to invest Back when phone directories were the primary tool to search for pest management companies everyone knew that if you didnt respond to inquiries quickly consumers would move on to the next listing and call your competitor Companies work with their sales staff to boost closing ratios by 10 percent to 20 percent Businesses are scraping for incremental increases in ROI and close ratios yet they overlook a gaping black hole that exists somewhere among their marketing customer service and sales teams MOBILE PMP Today internet leads are the primary source of industry leads and companies are losing thousands of dollars a year in sales due to their inability to respond in a timely manner Photo istock com adventtr Continued on page 102 Younger generations more impatient studies find Millennials and Gen Xers demand instant gratification and are the most likely to abandon their quest for your services should they not be contacted with lightning speed according to Dr Ramesh Sitaraman a computer science professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst after examining the viewing habits of 67 million internet users in a study he conducted The Pew Research Centers Internet American Life project sums up a recent study about consumers under the age of 35 and the dangers of their hyperconnected lives with what sounds like a prescription drug warning Negative effects include a need for instant gratification and loss of patience The need for instant gratification is not new but our expectation of instant has become faster and as a result our patience is thinner says Dr Narayan Janakiraman an assistant marketing professor at the University of Texas Arlington Its why you have people at Disney World paying for a special pass so they dont have to wait in line You have people who dont mind paying for things like same day delivery H G 100 october 2016 pest Management professional mypmp net
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