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As a business owner, the last thing you want to do is waste your time on leads that didn’t turn into customers. While it’s often easier to dismiss these lost leads altogether, it’s not the best choice. Some of those leads could easily turn into prospects given the right timing and attention or give you insight into why you are losing leads in the first place.
In this article, we’ll discuss why it’s important to survey lost leads and what questions to ask to gain insight and make more effective business decisions.
Importance of identifying why leads are lost
It’s important to not only be aware of any leads you are losing, but why you are losing them in the first place. Do you know why prospects end up forgoing your service or choosing a competitor? You may have an idea, but you won’t know for sure until you ask. There are a variety of reasons prospects end up passing on your company that you may not realize. These can include:
- Price is out of budget
- Value is not conveyed fully
- Competitor is more appealing
- Project is less of a priority at the time
- Can’t deliver on full ask
- Follow up isn’t carried out in a timely manner
The reason you lost the prospect could be any of these things or a combination of several. If you assume you know the answer, you could end up spending time and money to fix an issue that isn’t one in the first place, while still leaving yourself open to losing similar prospects in the future.
Be sure to build out a process that allows you to follow up with lost leads within a few days so you can get honest feedback while it’s still fresh in their minds. Identifying why you are losing leads gives you a starting point to begin making improvements.
Follow up with lost leads
Whether through specialized software or your own way of tracking, build a simple follow-up system for all leads at their different stages. After a lead has gone cold and you’ve followed up to find out why, immediately make note and set an alert for when you’ll reach out to them again.
When planning a time to reach out, keep in mind the length of the contract you were selling or when a typical customer is ready to re-engage. You should try to reach out slightly before that time, so you don’t find yourself making contact right after they’ve already worked out a new deal with your competitor. If a customer was originally interested in a renovation project, perhaps they needed more time to save up for the project and may have a stronger interest in the next few months.
If there’s an underlying lesson to this survey process, it’s to not give up on lost or cold leads. You never know when their situation could change or how satisfied they are with their chosen alternative. Being open to partnering again with lost leads means the time you spent on them isn’t a waste, it’s an investment.
Analyze your processes
No business process is foolproof, and no team is perfect. However, by surveying lost leads, you can make it easier to seal up those cracks and discover where your team needs the most help.
Ideally, you should be tracking your entire sales and marketing process. As part of this tracking, your team should add notes for each prospect, what was discussed during each interaction, and the date they were contacted. Through this tracking system, you can retrieve critical information and pinpoint specific trends.
Ask the right questions
When you’re determining what questions to ask, it’s essential to strike the right tone. When surveying lost leads, you don’t want to sound defensive or make it seem like you’re only asking these questions to prolong the sales process.
While you may hope to gain their business in the future, you must state upfront your goal is to seek information. By doing this, you’re likely to garner higher response rates and more honest answers. Even if you’ve lost some prospects’ business for good, their answers may help you find and convert many others like them.
Here are some common questions to consider in your survey:
- What was the biggest consideration you based your decision on?
- Were there any references or online reviews that swayed your decision?
- What ultimately made you decide not to move forward?
- Is there anything that we could have done differently that would have changed your mind?
Listen to your prospects
While you know more about your services and offerings than your customers, they bring a different perspective to how your business carries out processes. They understand how your company communicates and your reputation in the industry. Most importantly, they have a good idea of how others feel when interacting with your company.
This knowledge can be used as an opportunity. When you survey prospects, you can engage with them in a personable way and educate them about how your services benefit them. Likewise, they can educate you on how your communications make them and others like them feel. Of course, they can also provide information about why they ended up forgoing your services.
By surveying lost leads for feedback, you’re creating a two-way street of communication. If lost leads give feedback that your services are too expensive, maybe you need to better convey the value you are providing so they can justify spending that money. This feedback allows you to create an action plan for improved business performance.
Surveying lost leads with GuildQuality
Crafting an effective survey isn’t always easy. It takes time to send out and wait for enough answers to generate the larger picture you need for analysis. This is especially true if you find your first attempt didn’t garner effective feedback or your response rate isn’t high enough to make conclusions.
GuildQuality members see an average response rate of 25% for lost lead surveys, and in many cases, those responses lead to unexpected sales that would have otherwise been dismissed. Use our handy calculator to find out what your potential return on investment could be when you survey your lost leads.
Let GuildQuality do the work for you
We take the work off your plate. Our surveying platform provides customized surveys that give you the exact feedback you want and need, in real time. We make it easy to identify trends, measure performance, and analyze results against historical data and industry benchmarks. We’ll even transfer lost prospects to you immediately if we learn they’re still interested.
Try us for free, and we’ll collect feedback from 20 of your prospects or customers to help you see the bigger picture. Get started today by visiting us online or calling us at 1-888-355-9223.
