That’s a chilling thought.

From my own experience, I can attest to this sometimes frustrating reality.

In a previous life I used to sell fitness products and when times slowed down a little we would run promotional campaigns to generate new leads.

People would go to our website, fill out our form which included their name and phone number and those leads would go through to our sales manager to be distributed throughout the team.

We would get a very high contact rate for leads contacted minutes after their ‘call request’ and there was (not surprisingly) a direct connection between an early contact and conversion.

The leads that came in overnight were incredibly hard to even get on the phone – in fact, I would say at least 30% were never contacted even though we had made multiple attempts to contact.

Responsiveness was critical to sales conversions.

In fact, a study conducted by Professor Oldroyd and Lead Response Management showed just how critical responsiveness is to businesses:

Responding to web leads within 5 minutes = 900% increase in contact rate

(Notice the steep drop-off between 5 and 10 minutes!)

If you’re responsive enough to get a customer while they’re still thinking of you and your product is still fresh in their mind the chances of contacting, converting and closing skyrockets!

Here are 4 reasons why responsiveness is critical:

1. Top of mind

When a buyer is browsing your products, you’re the number one provider on their mind. This is what big companies pay millions of dollars to achieve and for good reason – it matters.

2. Location

They’re on your website, engaging with your content, by reacting quickly you can get them while they’re still on your website property.

3. Product awareness

They’re fully aware of your product and they’ve most likely imagined themselves benefiting from it. This is a great time to answer any questions and convert.

4. Competition

If you’re not on the ball, guess which website they’re going to next?

Old school marketers and sales pros will tell you that when it comes to conversions, timing is everything. Right product, right person, right timing is the key here, and by getting them while they’re hot you’ve got the highest chance of conversion.