Your Customers Are Calling You. Are You Picking Up?

In today’s world, there are many easy ways to connect with others — you can text, email, or video chat someone on your phone all with a click of a button. Even with all of these easy ways to communicate, old habits die hard when people want to reach a company. Believe it or not, people still pick up the phone and call companies … but not all companies have someone there to answer their calls.If you ever called HubSpot, I was the person who picked up. I’ve seen the demand for phone conversations with potential customers first-hand. I talked to people from all over the world who call at all hours of the day. I had people call me when it’s midnight, their time. People will call your business that late because they want help right that second from your company.

Will you be there to answer them? If you are, you could reap the benefits. Below are a few reasons why your business should be answering the phone when potential customers call in.

1) You’re Talking With People Who Want to Hear From You

When someone gives your company a ring, they’re taking time out of their busy schedule to talk to you. They’re so interested in your company that they’re not waiting for you to get in touch with them. Sounds like someone you want to do business with, right? Because they’ve reached out to you instead of vice versa, they’ll be more likely to move onto the next stage in the buying process.

2) You Can Get Faster Bottom-Line Results

When on an inbound call, people want to talk to someone from your company immediately. If you have someone to answer their questions when they call, you’ll be able to help the person on the phone get to their next step of the buying process — fast.

And what happens when you can quickly move someone from one stage to the next in your funnel? You get higher conversion rates. At HubSpot, we’ve seen our conversion rates skyrocket because of the inbound call program. Inbound calls have a conversion rate 15X higher than the overall conversion rate.

Still skeptical about having someone answer your company’s phones?

3) You Can Make More Money

If you aren’t picking up your company’s phone, you could be throwing a lot of money away. According to an infographic by Invoca, the inbound call industry will generate $4.17 billion this year — and will continue to grow:

Since inbound calls are on the rise, your company could get a nice slice of the growing industry pie if you implement one.

4) You’ll Make Lots of Friends in Sales

As an inbound call coordinator, you’ll often hear from people who want to buy from your company — the people your sales reps are dying to talk to. If the lead you forward to a rep turns into a customer (which is quite likely), reps will remember who gave them the lead in the first place.

For example, I sent a lead off to a sales rep one day … then low and behold, it became a huge sale. To my astonishment, the rep personally delivered a bottle of bourbon to my desk to thank me for sending over the lead. I also had another rep send me a $50 gift card to a local coffee shop for all of the great leads I sent her.

This is Sales and Marketing alignment at work. This program strengthens the bond between the two instead of creating tension. And a better relationship between these two teams helps set your company up for long-term growth — which is what everyone in the company wants.