Countless factors drive prospective customers to browse your website, pick up the phone, or visit your business. Slick marketing, viral ads, top-of-the-line products, and the right price point are just a few things that may grab their attention.
After the initial contact, quality follow-up is what turns a prospect into a paying customer. But sometimes leads aren’t ready to purchase, don’t respond to outreach efforts, or end up buying from a competitor. Another challenge? Salespeople don’t always know how many follow-ups it takes to close a sale.
A core dilemma for sales teams is walking the fine line between persistence and annoyance. Besides time constraints and competing priorities, reps often don’t follow up consistently for fear of bothering the customer. This is where conversational AI (artificial intelligence) can help.
Conversational AI is always available to provide immediate, consistent, customized follow-up — without feeling bad or giving up. This article delves into the ideal follow-up frequency and how conversational AI can help your sales team close deals.
The Importance of Sales Follow-Ups
A “follow-up” is every interaction your sales reps have with a prospect after the first point of contact. Most follow-ups these days take place via phone call, text, email, or social media message.
Not every customer is ready to buy at first contact. By following up, your company keeps your product or service at the top of their mind. When they’re ready, they won’t have forgotten about you. This is especially important in our hyper-communicative era, where people receive hundreds of emails and texts every day.
Another part of follow-up is psychological. If salespeople don’t reach out, the customer may think their business doesn’t matter. Quality follow-ups are not about applying pressure but building relationships. Every time you contact a prospect, you can learn more about their pain points and provide them with helpful information. That kind of persistence builds trust.
That said, follow-ups are more important in some industries than others. For example, purchases like basic groceries and low-cost consumer goods don’t often depend on follow-up. However, big-ticket items and service contracts rely on top-notch service, nurturing, and support. Examples include B2B, real estate, tech, and finance.
How Many Follow-Ups Do You Need To Close a Sale?
Of course, there is a fine line between persistence and pestering. Finding the sweet spot is key. These sales statistics point companies in the right direction:
- Once is not enough: According to the RAIN Group, it takes an average of 8 touchpoints just to get a meeting with a new potential customer.
- Frequency matters: Over half (60%) of customers reject an offer four times before purchasing. A whopping 80% of successful sales require five or more follow-ups.
- There is a limit: Response rates rise with each contact attempt — to a point. After eight touchpoints, the law of diminishing returns applies. This means the 12th interaction is generally no more effective than the 8th.
- There’s a happy medium: The right number of follow-ups depends on product complexity, industry, campaign type, and length of the decision-making cycle. However, one study showed that 80% of all sales close after between five and twelve contact attempts.
Despite these statistics, many sales professionals stop way too early. Shockingly, nearly half (48%) of salespeople never make any follow-up attempts at all. Almost as many (44%) quit after just one attempt. Although most reps see building strong relationships as a critical aspect of sales, many fail to follow through.
Why? Manual follow-up is often labor-intensive, and your team may be stretched thin. Like all people, sales reps can make errors, such as letting leads slip through the cracks or allowing too much time between contacts. Emotions also come into play, as humans naturally dislike hearing the word “no.”
Why Prompt Response Times Matter
Now you know that frequency matters, but what about response timing? The statistics help here, too.
- Companies improve conversion rates by nearly 400% when calling leads within one minute of an inquiry.
- Sales teams are seven times as likely to qualify a lead by responding within the first hour.
- Making sales calls within an hour of an initial inquiry produces the best results.
In short, there’s a reason the sales world focuses on “speed to lead,” the time between an initial inquiry and your organization’s response. The company that responds first often wins the sale.
However, the statistics are again at odds with how businesses handle follow-ups. On the upside, a study found that 37% of US companies audited responded within an hour, and 16% responded between one and 24 hours. On the downside, 24% took longer, and 23% never responded. The average response time (among responding companies) was 42 hours.
Responding to customers right away communicates that you respect their time, take their concerns seriously, and value their business. Failing to reply promptly sends the opposite message. Quick responses enhance buyer trust, confidence, and satisfaction.
For example, if your reps have a meaningful interaction with a lead in the first five minutes, they’ve laid the groundwork for a relationship. If a competitor responds just an hour later, they’re already so far behind that sometimes even a lower price often won’t convince the lead to change course.
How Do Customers Feel About Follow-Ups?
Effective follow-ups require fast response times and frequent contacts. But it’s not just a numbers game. Tone, content, and approach also matter in cultivating favorable customer responses.
Buyers are commonly frustrated with the following types of follow-up efforts:
- Impersonal outreach: Buyers want to purchase from companies that understand their goals. However, many feel most salespeople don’t make an effort to understand them.
- Overly aggressive or wordy communications: Most consumers want brief, casual, low-pressure contacts. They don’t respond well to hassling or guilt trips.
- Planned interactions: Many customers appreciate scheduled phone calls that demonstrate respect for their time and allow them to plan for the conversation.
Smart sales teams use consumer behavior insights to create effective communications during follow-up. For example, since modern buyers demand personalization, email subject lines should use engaging, customized references rather than generic phrases like “following up.”
How Conversational AI Improves Lead Nurturing
Even if your team understands how many follow-ups they need to close a sale, when to send them, and what content to include, the real world sometimes intervenes. Sales reps have multiple job duties, are not available 24/7, and often engage inconsistently with leads. Conversational AI can help overcome these very human challenges.
With conversational AI, your company can continually re-engage old leads without wasting your sales reps’ time or falling victim to discouragement after several failed attempts. This technology integrates directly with your business’s contact list to call old leads for you, using human-like conversation.
Voice AI technology follows custom scripts trained on your business’s unique services and offerings, ensuring that every customer interaction aligns with your goals. It integrates with your company’s CRM system, giving it access to the customer data you already have on file. The AI uses machine learning and this platform data to adapt its scripts over time, creating more and more personalized interactions.
All the while, your sales team has more time to do what humans do best: nurture relationships. You can focus your efforts on speaking with leads who are close to closing while the conversational AI handles repetitive follow-ups for you.
AI helps ensure no lead is left behind, keeping clients engaged with reminders and even re-engaging dormant prospects. Automating and optimizing follow-up schedules also gives leads timely and consistent communications.
Best Practices for Following Up With Leads
So, let’s sum it all up: How should your business be following up on leads?
- Timing: The sooner you reach out, the better. Within one minute is better than one hour, and within one hour is better than one day.
- Frequency: When determining how many follow-ups are needed to close a sale, aim for at least five. However, the right frequency depends on your industry, service or product, and price point.
- Content: Rather than generic follow-ups, customers want valuable, personalized messages that answer their questions and address their needs. Avoid pressure or guilt.
- Channels: Today’s customer expects seamless omnichannel communication via email, phone, text, and social media. Choosing the right medium for your message requires you to understand your audience and identify your objectives.
- Analytics: One of the best parts about AI is that it is always learning — and you should be, too. Make sure to use tracking features and metrics to analyze follow-up performance.
The Cost of Missed Follow-Ups
Since the vast majority of sales don’t close after just one contact, you’re missing out on connecting with a huge number of potential customers by not following up. In other words, the cost of missed follow-ups is virtually everything. Depending on your business, this could translate into millions of dollars in sales.
Research shows that the longer you take to respond to a lead, the less likely you are ever to reach them. For example, if your team takes five days to follow up, the lead may have already bought from a competitor with a quicker response time. Or they may have decided that your company is unprofessional or disinterested and don’t want to work with you.
It’s not just new customers you’re losing either. Poor follow-up negatively impacts long-term relationships and customer loyalty. According to Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than keeping an existing one. That means when you lose current customers, your bottom line takes an even bigger hit.
How Conversational AI Enhances Productivity
Sales representatives can quickly become burnt out by the relentless follow-up process. Not so with conversational AI.
This technology responds to leads tirelessly without giving up or feeling hurt. Since you now know how many follow-ups you need to close a sale, the advantages here are obvious.
Your sales reps can focus on more meaningful tasks, avoiding burnout and keeping productivity rates high. They can allow voice AI to initiate the conversation with leads, gather new information, and set the lead up to close the sale — then have the call transferred to them at the opportune time.
Ultimately, the human touch still matters. The best lead nurturing combines human empathy and guidance with AI’s efficiency and processing power. Sometimes, prospects need a few contacts before they’re ready to speak with a human agent. Conversational AI complements your sales reps rather than replacing them.
Key Metrics To Track Follow-Up Success
How do you know if your sales strategies are working? Start by looking at the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
- Response rates: The percentage of leads that respond positively to outreach efforts.
- Number of touchpoints: How many follow-ups are needed to close a sale?
- Time-to-close metrics: The elapsed time between initial contact and finalizing the sale.
- Customer satisfaction: Post-follow-up surveys, feedback forms, or interviews can measure how leads feel about the interaction and whether it resolved their issue.
Once you’ve gathered these metrics, use the resulting insights to continuously refine follow-up strategies.
Common Mistakes in Sales Follow-Ups (and How To Avoid Them)
Now that you know how and how often to follow up, what should you avoid in the sales outreach process?
- Too much follow-up: While most sales reps should follow up more, there is a limit. Remember the law of diminishing returns and focus on quality contacts rather than quotas.
- Impersonal outreach: Generic messages don’t add value, but customized scripts and personalized recommendations do.
- One-size-fits-all approach: Another common mistake is failing to adapt approaches based on buyer behavior and preferences.
Leveraging AI helps avoid these errors. For example, conversational AI can provide highly personalized experiences by integrating directly with your CRM and phone systems, ensuring continuity with each conversation. AI also manages your leads across different platforms, engaging them no matter how they prefer to communicate.
Creating a Smarter Follow-Up Strategy
Beyond how many follow-ups are needed to close a sale, effective outreach involves prompt responses, useful information, and personalized interactions. It can be a lot for most sales teams to handle.
2X Solutions can help. Our conversational voice AI platform nurtures leads while empowering salespeople. We know the best approaches to balance technological advancements with human efforts for more productive and efficient sales. Try our demo today.
