What do you/your clients use to respond to leads?

[Bounce Back]

For those in the lead gen/service business space:

What tools or processes do you (or your clients) currently use to respond when a lead comes in? What do they/you think of that tool/process? Primarily focused on the point of time of first response but open to hearing full flows.

I've had a half-baked idea for something in the space for a while and recently come across a potential opportunity to acquire in the same space of this idea. However when I ran my service business I just stayed glued to my email personally and tried to respond as fast as possible - no tech. So you can see this question as a bit of due diligence.

Wondering what others do.

For those getting leads for clients, a second question. What would you say is the average time to respond for your clients and do they ever respond too slow to nab a lead you got them (and presumably they are paying for)?

 

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[Bounce Back]

One and only bump I will do to this thread but getting further in talks with the company for sale and would value any input.

Especially any thing you've seen related to getting time to lead response down or its impact on closing sales.

 

[Devilery]

The best tool out there is GoHighLevel, it's a powerhouse with tons of features. Specifically, for managing and communicating with leads that would be my top choice. It can do a lot more but for example their website builder is crap.

 

[luminis_]

What tools or processes do you (or your clients) currently use to respond when a lead comes in? What do they/you think of that tool/process

GoHighLevel has great lead nurture systems and they can connect to most ad platforms (like FB ads) - the flow that I generally use is: Lead opts in through form -> wait 5-10 minutes -> send an automated sms + optional: voicemail drop -> continue conversation

People who opt in tend to respond well from my experience, especially since sms open rates are MUCH higher than cold emails. Also, GHL has new AI features that can connect to ChatGPT which could help automate the conversational aspect (and reply faster)

For those getting leads for clients, a second question. What would you say is the average time to respond for your clients and do they ever respond too slow

If somebody receives an sms + voicemail shortly after signing up for something, they generally respond pretty quick. But it's entirely dependent on the person from my experience as I've learned people tend to go "zombie-mode" on social media and sign up for ads without thinking about it.

Overall though, the best advice I received on this is to help the lead connect the dots as soon as possible from when they opted in to your funnel to booking the appointment / buying the product/service.

 

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[IceCreamKid]

We use A.I. + Twilio + HighLevel for responding to leads. It's fully automated and completely hands off. It was an absolute pain in the a$$ to set up.

After they opt in, it automatically sends them an SMS text and proceeds to qualify them. If they are unqualified, they're not offered a calendly link to book a call but are added to an e-mail nurturing sequence. Only those who are qualified are able to book a call.

I have a love/hate relationship with HighLevel. They focus all of their energy on adding a ton of features to their platform, but minimal time on the customer experience.

For those getting leads for clients, a second question. What would you say is the average time to respond for your clients and do they ever respond too slow to nab a lead you got them (and presumably they are paying for)?

Speed to lead was the #1 issue in the beginning. Some responded after a few days while others didn't respond at all. We were able to solve this with automation in addition to offering call center setups.

The call center setup can actually be an entire biz in itself. We charge a $25k-50k set up fee depending on the complexity involved. If they cannot afford that, we offer a $10k tutorial + 6 months of support so they can set it up themselves.

The gurus never talk about the speed to lead issue. This is what a lot of agency owners face:

1. Client receives lead
2. Client doesn't follow up with lead fast enough and doesn't have any sales process in place to optimize conversions
3. Client blames agency for low quality leads even though the real issue is speed to lead
4. Client churns
5. Agency is stuck in a never-ending hamster wheel of losing clients as fast as he acquires them. Quits.

 

[Bounce Back]

Thanks @Devilery @luminis_ for and @IceCreamKid your detailed replies.

So I see all 3 said GoHighLevel. Seems to be ~$297/month if I am understanding there site right and there isn't any "gotchas" - pretty cheap compared to others I've researched in the space like ChiliPiper / Hatch / etc. I wonder how they contain the api costs if some clients are sending out thousands of SMS?

Anyways checking out GoHighLevel videos and what little they seem to share on their main site their SMS flow seems to require opt-in.

The tool I am exploring acquiring now seems way less feature rich than all of this (but maybe that is a good thing) and currently doesn't do much in way of integration. It simply can take leads from anywhere that come in via email (doesn't require using specific form widgets or anything like that) and can start the funnel by firing off SMS (can be two way but only by logging into the app - it doesn't use your #) / email to a specific agent that gets routed. It can also handle calling the agent and ask them if they'd like to be dialed into the lead (it calls for them) - steps are configurable.

Unlike GoHighLevel it isn't currently branded as a CRM solution but "pre-CRM". I think the angle could be a good niche (it is currently a rather dead company and needs resurrected) - simplest/easiest set up and especially for local service type companies who don't even use a CRM at all.

I like that GoHighLevel allows agencies to white label it. Could be a good place to expand this potential opportunity I am looking at.

Any thoughts?

 

[Andy Black]

I deal with local service businesses that don't have a CRM and don't know what I mean by "lead" (I have to call them enquiries).

We send people from Google Ads to a dynamic landing page (where the copy for the headline, bullets, and button are passed via the ad URL and match the ad), and where they can tap-to-call or start a lead form.

The leadform captures info and then sends an email to the client, and adds a record to a Google Sheet the client has access too.

That's it so far.

My developer is figuring out how to send a lead notification to an app on the client's phone (or maybe to the client's business WhatsApp?).

Do clients not respond in time? Sure, and many then churn. We'll improve it, but the silver lining is we're left with the clients who have their act together.


We also deal with businesses that already have a CRM, so we focus on getting leads into the system they already have.

 

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[IceCreamKid]

Seems to be ~$297/month if I am understanding there site right and there isn't any "gotchas" - pretty cheap compared to others I've researched in the space like ChiliPiper / Hatch / etc. I wonder how they contain the api costs if some clients are sending out thousands of SMS?

The "gotcha" is HighLevel does everything, but doesn't do any of it particularly well. The emails you send out from there will be ugly, the websites you make from there will be ugly, etc. That's why you have to use it in combination with other software.

Anyways checking out GoHighLevel videos and what little they seem to share on their main site their SMS flow seems to require opt-in.

All SMS flows require A2P compliance more than ever now. Prepare for some hefty fines if you're going to do SMS outreach without opt-in. I wouldn't proceed with your biz idea for this reason; hope I'm understanding your idea correctly that it sends SMS without opt-in.

Another thing to consider...much like how email providers scan emails for spammy words, the phone providers now seem to block outreach SMS if a number is deemed to be a spammer.

 

[Andy Black]

The "gotcha" is HighLevel does everything, but doesn't do any of it particularly well.

I looked at way too many landing page tools before finally getting my developer to create our pages and leadforms. And I shy away from tools that do everything now.

 

[Bounce Back]

All SMS flows require A2P compliance more than ever now. Prepare for some hefty fines if you're going to do SMS outreach without opt-in. I wouldn't proceed with your biz idea for this reason; hope I'm understanding your idea correctly that it sends SMS without opt-in.

I'm going to have to do some research on this - my thinking is whoever this system is texting is someone who already filled out a form requesting to be contacted - is that not "opting-in" by this law? Perhaps it has to be more formal than that. First time I've heard of this to be honest - thank you for the information.

Edit to add: So more transactional SMS than marketing.

Edit 2: After reading a bit it seems it doesn't matter - it needs to follow a2p 10dlc compliance basically if you at all send texts from any app. Though the internet currently seems to be a bit absent of hard info on this and just a lot of complaining of their campaigns getting rejected. I've asked the seller for some more info on this in the meantime to see if its something they've looked into (I don't think they have).

It doesn't seem impossible to get past if I did purchase the business but may make the auto-reply feel weird because its currently set up to be like as if they were texted right by the agent who would soon call them - if the a2p 10dlc compliance instead first sends them some opt-in prompt it kind of takes away from that feeling even though a real human is going to contact them.

 

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[Bounce Back]

Response I got back from the seller (paraphrased/not exact words):

"Currently our customers put the TCPA language on their site regarding automated marketing, calls, texts may be used etc.. We also have language in our agreement that the customers who use our service must have this language and indemnified us against their mistakes."

I've wrote back to ask some clarification because since the leads can come from anywhere and not just their site I am wondering if that can possibly cover it. I also from my newly read up knowledge think it would still require sending an opt-in text first? Little confused right now. I've got the most info from TCPA Regulations Text Messages: Your Guide for A2P Texting and Programmable Messaging and US A2P 10DLC .

From the first link though the "Implied consent" is what I think may work since they asked to be contacted and you have the email record as proof (well the customer does but the phone # may route to me so would need to think through how I could ever show proof). Though it seems best/suggested to still have them opt-in ("double opt-in" they call it).

Edit: Found ISV A2P 10DLC Onboarding Overview so "ISV a2p 10dlc" may be the specific buzzword this falls under where you do this on behalf of customers who use your tool.

Edit 2: Update from seller: each customer gets their own 10dlc registered number currently.