When it comes to contacting digital leads, having the right context is essential to boosting your contact rates and improving your chances of converting leads into customers. However, the timing and approach can make all the difference in whether or not those leads convert into sales. 

In Part 2 of our masterclass, we'll explore the optimal times to call warm leads and how to use context to boost contact rates. We'll also delve into the importance of number verification in Australia, how to avoid being flagged as spam, and tips for optimising your CRM and using call analytics. For larger call centres, we'll explore the benefits of predictive dialling, and the critical role that lead scoring and AI play in increasing contact rates with digital leads.

Optimal Times to Call and How Often?

When it comes to reaching out to warm leads, timing is still crucial. These leads are more likely to convert into customers, but it's still essential to make timely contact to keep them engaged and interested.

According to research by close.com in 2022, late mornings around 11 am and late afternoons between 4 to 5 pm are optimal times for reaching out to warm leads. Wednesdays and Thursdays are also the best days to contact them.

However, it's important to consider the specific behaviour and preferences of leads. If a lead picks up the phone and sounds rushed, it's worth making a note of this in your CRM. This information can be valuable for future reference, particularly if the lead tends to be in a hurry during that time of day or day of the week. By keeping this information in mind, you or other agents can schedule future calls or follow-ups at times when the lead is more likely to be available and less rushed, increasing the chances of success.

At Leadify, we understand the importance of responding to leads quickly. We recommend calling a lead within 60-90 seconds of it entering your CRM, as research by Velocity has shown that responding within the first minute increases lead conversions by an impressive 391%.

After just five minutes, the odds of qualifying a lead drop by a significant 80%, highlighting the critical nature of being prompt in your response. Responding within five minutes is still 21 times more effective than responding after 30 minutes.

To ensure you don't miss a lead, it's essential to set up new lead alerts in your CRM or use a dialler, which can help you to contact the lead immediately.

By responding quickly to your leads, you can maximise your chances of qualifying them, building a rapport with them, and ultimately converting them into loyal customers.

Here's an example of an initial call cadence list for a lead who hasn't picked up yet. This approach aims to reach out at different points of the day and over a week, while still respecting their time and space:

Day 1:

Call 1: Within 90 seconds of the lead entering the CRM 

Call 2: Early afternoon, between 1pm-3pm

Call 3: Late afternoon, between 4pm-6pm

Day 2:

Call 4: Late morning, around 11am

Call 5: Mid-afternoon, between 2pm-4pm

Call 6: Early evening, between 6pm-8pm (if appropriate)

Day 3:

Call 7: Mid-morning, around 9am

Call 8: Early afternoon, around 12pm

Call 9: Late afternoon, around 5pm

Day 4-7:

Continue following up via nurture and a less frequent call cadence.

You can find more about our automated nurture recommendations in Part 1 of this series.

Remember, this is just an example and the ideal call cadence may vary depending on your industry, the level of interest from the lead, and other factors. It's important to strike the right balance between being persistent and coming across as pushy, so be sure to adjust your approach as needed based on the lead's responsiveness.

Context For Contact: Angles, Creative & Sources

When it comes to contacting digital leads, having the right context is essential to boosting your contact rates and improving your chances of converting leads into customers. To get the context you need, start by asking your lead suppliers for the following information:

• Examples of Creatives:
  ‍If urgency is used as a strong hook on the creative used to attract the lead, then the lead is likely to be red hot and should be dialled more aggressively if they first don't pick up. Speed to lead is paramount here. By analysing the creatives that have been most effective in driving leads, you can gain insights into the type of messaging and imagery that resonates with your target audience. For example, you might find that ads featuring specific calls to action or limited-time offers perform better than others.

• Landing Page Text:
  The text on the confirmation or thank-you page after a lead has filled out a form is crucial to the next steps of a lead. If they see certain instructions on the landing page about what happens next, you need to make sure you are working in tandem with what they saw, otherwise, you may break rapport. By analysing this text, you can gain insights into the specific benefits or features that are most appealing to your target audience. For example, you might find that leads respond well to clear instructions about what will happen next in the sales process or about what they can expect from your company.

• UTM Parameters:
  UTM parameters are used to track the source of the lead and are particularly important to differentiate between which ad network sources are the most efficient for generating qualified leads. Analysing the different behaviours you get from different ad platforms can help you optimise call cadence. For example, you might find that leads from a particular ad network tend to be more engaged than those from other ad networks, allowing you to focus your sales efforts where they are likely to be most effective.

• Best Time to Call Field:
  If possible, ask your lead generator if they can add a "Best Time To Call" field. This may not always be possible as it can drive up costs, but it doesn't hurt to ask. In some instances, this is possible, especially for cheaper and easier to convert leads. By knowing the lead's preferred call time, you can increase the chances of connecting with them and avoid the risk of contacting them at an inconvenient time.

Spam Flagged Numbers: How They're Killing Your Contact Rates

You could have the best offer and sales team in the world, but it's all for nothing if your number is flagged as spam. It's a silent killer of your opportunity to convert leads into customers. With spam filtering technology becoming more sophisticated, it's essential to ensure that your call centre numbers are not flagged as spam.

Using a reputable calling service that can help prevent your number from being flagged as spam is an important step to improving your contact rates. Some calling services have a higher chance of being flagged as spam, so it's important to use a provider that uses best practices for calling and is recognised as reputable by industry standards. Aircall is an example of a reputable calling service that can help you avoid being flagged as spam and ensure that your calls get through to your leads.

In addition, it's important to be aware of any numbers that have been flagged as spam by phone carriers or third-party websites. In Australia, there are several websites where you can check if your phone number has been flagged as spam. Some of these sites include:

• ReverseAustralia.com
• ReverseAU.com
• ShouldIAnswer.net
• Truecaller.com
• NumberLookup.com.au
• WhoCalled.au

It's important to note that spam flagging by smartphones is based on machine learning via carrier or user flags, which makes it quite difficult to fix instantly. However, the best workaround is to rotate numbers and constantly monitor their reputation.

The amount of times we have seen reputable clients having contact rate issues due to their number flagging on smartphones and being talked about incorrectly as spam on user-generated report sites is phenomenal. By monitoring and addressing any spam flagging issues, you can help ensure that your calls get through to your leads and improve your overall contact rates.

Number Verification in Australia: What You Need to Know

Number verification is an important step for any business looking to purchase leads in Australia. While it isn't always necessary to use an OTP (One-Time Password), using silent verification can improve the contact rates by a small percentage. While Australia has privacy restrictions that prevent the level of verification possible in the USA, there are still ways to verify the validity of phone numbers before purchasing leads.

One way to do this is through number validation services that use data from telcos to determine if a number is active and connected to a mobile or landline service. This can help you avoid purchasing leads with invalid or disconnected phone numbers, saving you time and money in the long run. This should usually be done by the lead provider though in any case.

In some cases, you may want to take verification a step further and buy leads where the users must use one-time passwords (OTPs) to confirm the number before the lead submits. While this option can be more expensive and may not be necessary or possible for all lead verticals/types, it will often provide a boosted contact rate. Strangely, we don’t always find this to be the case but it is more often than not. Sometimes it can deter people from finalising their lead submission and you lose good potential prospects due to the friction of OTP.

Optimising Your CRM for Higher Contact Rates: Using Auto Reminders and Call Notes to Improve Lead Contact

As a sales team, it's essential to make sure you're getting the most out of your CRM to maximise contact rates and lead conversions. One way to do this is to optimise your CRM by utilising auto-reminders and taking detailed notes about your interactions with your leads.

Auto-reminders can help ensure that you're reaching out to your leads at the optimal time for contact, and that no leads are slipping through the cracks. For example, if you have a warm lead who typically engages with your business during a particular time of day or day of the week, you can use auto-reminders to schedule your call at that time, increasing your chances of success.

In addition, it's crucial to take detailed notes about each lead's interaction with your business. This includes notes about what was said during the first and second dials, as well as any other information that may be relevant to the sales process. Using the earlier example in this piece, if a lead picked up but sounded rushed, note this in your CRM, so you (or another agent) knows that this person is usually rushing around at this time.

These notes can help you tailor your approach to each lead and improve your chances of converting them into customers. By using these insights to personalise your communication and provide value to the lead, you'll create a stronger relationship and increase your chances of closing the sale.

Use the Data: Call Analytics

Finally, to increase your contact rate, it’s important to use data and analytics to track your outreach efforts and optimise your strategies. This means using software tools that can help you track your calls, texts, emails, and other outreach efforts, and then analysing the data to see what is working and what is not.

One of the most effective tools for tracking your outreach efforts is a SaaS tool like Aircall, which integrates with your reporting software to provide you with a comprehensive view of your outreach efforts. With Aircall, you can track important metrics such as call duration, call outcome, and more, and then use this data to optimise your strategies and increase your contact rate.

For instance, you can analyse the data to identify the best times of day or days of the week to call leads. You can also use the data to improve your contact-to-opportunity rate by identifying times when people seem rushed, disengaged, or potentially more open to a conversation. For example, you may notice that some prospects are more likely to engage in a conversation on a Friday afternoon when they're in a good mood, or perhaps even after having a beer!

By using data and analytics to optimise your outreach efforts, you can improve your overall contact rate, as well as the quality of your conversations with leads, ultimately increasing your chances of converting them into loyal customers.

[Advanced, Larger Call Centres] 

Predictive Dialling Like The Pros

Predictive dialling is a valuable tool for big call centres looking to optimise their contact rate. The tech works by automatically dialling leads for agents, ensuring that they are always talking to a live person. Using a predictive dialer has many benefits for call centres, especially when it comes to warm digital leads. Here are some of the advantages:

• Shorter wait times:
  Sales representatives don't have to waste time waiting between calls, since the predictive dialer forwards active calls for them.
  

• Higher productivity:
  With a predictive dialer service, thousands of prospects can be called at once and immediately forwarded to available agents. No dialling numbers, no ringing, and no waiting for an answer. This allows sales teams to get more done in a shorter amount of time.
  

• Reduced ghost calls:
  Predictive dialers redirect calls to sales agents waiting on the other side. This way, when someone answers the cold call, they're not left hanging while an agent is away and you don't lose a closing opportunity.
  

• Detection of dead-end numbers:
  A predictive dialer can detect no-answer calls, voicemails, answering machines, and fake or busy numbers. It can skip those and then only route the live calls to agents, thereby saving time.

While these benefits can increase your contact rate and lead to more conversations, it's important to ensure that your agents have adequate time to handle each call properly. Otherwise, the efficiency gains can be negated by poor customer service, which can hurt your conversion rates.

Lead Scoring & AI

So, what's lead scoring all about? It involves assigning scores to each lead based on factors like household income, employment status, loan amount, credit score, previous interactions, location, and demographics. You can also take into account the accuracy and verification of a lead's email, address, and phone number to generate scoring parameters.

Let's say you're selling a product or service, and you have a list of leads that have expressed interest. By using lead scoring, you can prioritize your outreach efforts and focus on leads that are more likely to convert into paying clients. For example, leads with verified and accurate contact information might receive a higher score than those with unverified or inaccurate information.

Salesforce is a fantastic tool for lead scoring. It lets you track and score leads based on various finance-related fields and contact information. You can even integrate it with AI solutions like Chilli Piper. Chilli Piper's conversational AI can help you automate parts of the customer experience by providing quick and accurate answers to common questions. This can free up your team to focus on more high-value tasks, like closing deals and providing personalised support.