LeadQual’s shopping spree continues.  As a follow-up to our Secret Shopper study for education leads, we decided to shop the mortgage industry to determine how quickly lenders respond to their mortgage leads.

In our study, lead forms were completed and submitted for 136 lenders.  Incredibly, only 40% of our inquiries received a telephone response over a 24 hour period.  That’s right - 60% of our inquiries did not receive a response!  The average response time for leads that did receive a response was just under SEVEN hours!

To be sure, there are lenders responding to all their leads, and doing so quickly.  Our study concludes that the current state of lead response presents both a challenge and an opportunity for virtually every lender that generates or purchases Internet leads.

We will be presenting results of our study at the Mortgage Bankers Association 96th Annual Convetion and Expo in San Diego, booth #425.  Visit us at our booth, or call us to get your individual company results.   The study can be downloaded here:  http://www.leadqual.com/whitepapersindex.html.

Jeff Miller

Here at LeadQual, we decided to do a bit of shopping. We bought 5 cell phones, and gave them all to Kima. Kima then completed 5 different web forms for 92 different schools. Kima then grew 3 more ears and hit submit! Actually, we’ve been doing this over the past few months, so she could effectively log in each lead and each response.

The results are startling. Only 63% of leads were responded to, and the average response time was over SEVEN hours.

Wow. Schools are spending so much money to generate the leads, but don’t have the systems in place to effectively manage them. Feel free to download the study here:

http://www.leadqual.com/whitepapersindex.html

If you’d like to see if we secret shopped your school, please drop us a line, or come visit us at the CCA show in Orlando.

Regards,

Andrew Coleman

LeadQual has released a white paper showing how rapid response to internet leads increases conversion.  You can view the white paper here.

LeadQual’s lead response and live lead transfer service was created on this principle, and we proud to have the data to show how our customers benefit.

Key findings of white paper include:

• Prospective buyers fill out 3-5 lead forms
• The first to contact a lead increases conversion 238%
• More than 65% of all conversions occur on first call
• Calling a lead more than 5 minutes after a lead is submitted has a 46% lower qualification rate than calling in less than 5 minutes.
• Speed of response is the best predictor of a closed transaction
• Enormous opportunity exists for after-hour and weekend calling when most companies are not staffed for a rapid response

It is important to note how calling within 5 minutes after a lead is submitted dramatically increases conversion.  This is where a call center that specializes in lead response can drive success.

For more information on this study and our live lead transfer service, please contact us here.

Here at LeadQual, we have a lot to be thankful for – while the economy outside is stormy, LeadQual is growing – we added 7 people in December alone.  It gives both Glenn and I great level of satisfaction to be adding folks, versus laying people off.  I believe small businesses will be what pulls this country out of our severe recession, and most of our clients are these small businesses, so we thank you.  This year, unlike prior years, we decided to forgo giving holiday gifts to our clients.  In lieu of distributing these gifts, we gave contributions to local food banks, as well as funds to Donor’s Choose (thanks Google).  I posted a few of the letters we received in thanks, and wish to pass along my sincere appreciation to our clients, partners and friends (see Thank you letter from Alameda Food Bank and Google’s Donor’s Choose).  Happy holidays.

Andrew

First, I’d like to thank the CAPPS (California Association of Private Postsecondary Schools) team for allowing me to speak at thier annual conference.  We have done a number of tests in the edu veritcal and find a lot of areas of opportunities.  This vertical is highly competitive and the big players have a lot of advantages - we believe by working with us, you can level the playing field.  I have been asked for my presentation by a number of folks, so I have uploaded it here.  Thanks,

 Andrew