Revenue · 5 min read
The Real Cost Of A Slow First Response
Response time is the most under-measured commercial variable in most service businesses.
Attention has a short shelf life
An enquiry is sent at the moment of highest intent. Every hour that passes, that intent decays and the customer's attention moves to whoever answered first.
Most businesses do not lose enquiries to competitors with better offers. They lose them to competitors who replied sooner.
Speed is a system, not an effort
Asking a team to respond faster works until the day gets busy. A system responds the same way at nine in the morning and at eleven at night, and it never forgets to log the conversation.
The goal is not to remove people from the conversation. It is to make sure the conversation has already started by the time a person joins it.