One of the primary metrics for any successful sales team or a competent customer service team is the ability to acquire solid leads and improve your contact ratio. If lead generation isn’t the problem, then what’s going on?
Lead generation forms are a tool that helps acquire quantifiable leads. However, many businesses don’t fully recognize the power behind specific elements of a lead generation form. In this case, a field for a mobile phone number.
4 Reasons Why Adding a Mobile Phone Number Field is Crucial
The field for a potential customer’s mobile phone number helps improve your contact ratio in a variety of ways, in both sales and customer service areas.
Adding a Call to Action
Every website needs a call to action that urges the potential customer to do something or have an interaction with your business.
According to Small Biz Trends:
The reason you need one is simple. After spending a lot of money and effort putting up a website and promoting it and getting visitors to it — the last thing you want is for that visitor to leave without establishing some connection with him or her. Today there are billions of Web pages. Will that visitor ever find your website again? Have you given that visitor some means to remember your business? Have you taken a step — even a small one like a newsletter sign up — to stay in contact with that visitor?
This advice relates to asking for a customer’s mobile phone number because it is a call to action that leads to further contact. Nevertheless, this is just a start to how doing so aids in a better conversion ratio and increased connections.
Using the Phone Number Field to Gain Advantage In Timing
One of the ways that businesses gain customers and increase their conversion ratio is by getting customers to invest their time. What better way to open the dialogue than through a phone call or SMS?
Think of it this way – if a lead comes in, then you know that the potential customer is near their phone and probably open to some communication. While you shouldn’t text a customer at 2 am, you may find someone who is looking at a new or used car, and the information you need comes in on a Sunday during closed hours.
If you wait to contact them, then they may have already moved on to a competitor or have changed their mind. Time is of the essence for sales and customer service. In other words, there is no better time to contact a customer than right when they are interested in your services.
Adding a Mobile Phone Number Field is Crucial For Better Dialogue
There are several reasons why adding a field for a mobile phone number is crucial in gaining not only micro-moments but stable conversions as well.
One of the significant components of adding a field for a mobile phone number is that you open better options for dialogue with the customer. For instance, with a phone number available, the sales team can contact the potential customer after work hours, on the weekend, or whenever it is appropriate via text or a phone call.
A sales rep also has the ability to interact with the potential lead when it is fresh on the customer’s mind. Your sales team needs to have conversations that follow these three steps:
- Find out the customer’s needs and listen to what they are trying to communicate.
- Show them your information or research that helps fulfill their needs. This particular step does increase the sales cycle time, but it also gives the customer more investment into your business.
- This is where you are ready to present your proposal. Where you can address concerns or objections and work to overcome them. This step also gives a glimpse into what might be the reason the sale is not completing or why the customer is not committing to your offer.
However, this is not just for businesses that sell tangible things. Those who work in non-profit organizations, direct mail houses, and hospitality sectors also benefit from having a client’s mobile phone number.
Following Up on Phone Number Leads
Getting a phone number from potential clients or customers is just half of the final goal; the other half is following up on that lead.
Companies don’t respond fast enough to leads. In fact, they take 46 hours and 53 minutes to pick up the phone and respond to a lead. And the sales rep who does call, only makes 1.3 call attempts before giving up and moving on.In fact, our own in-house research shows only 27% of leads ever get contacted. Yet with a combination of awareness, best practices, and technology; companies can contact around 92% of leads.
Now that you have the potential customer’s information, it is imperative that your sales team or customer service team follows up on those leads as soon as possible to ensure a better conversion rate. For a more prosperous and robust effort, adding the field for a mobile phone number, combined with following up on those leads, is a combination that will fuel a more significant amount of conversions and better sales overall.
The Advantage To Bigger Data
When your goal is to make contact with all your leads, you want all the possible ways to contact them. If your efforts aren’t collecting mobile numbers, then there is a good chance you are missing opportunities. Be sure to get the additional call to action that a mobile phone number field offers. You’re on your way to better sales dialogues, and more timely follows ups.
