At VirtualExpo, we use star-rating for sellers, an important feature for all marketplaces.
Now, we want to explain the importance of rapidly responding to requests and how this can affect your seller ratings.
Buyers who submit their info to send requests are not “just browsing”. They are serious buyers who are willing to give their time to reach out to you. Buyers thoroughly educate themselves online before even thinking about making a request. And then they make that purchase too.
Since buyers expect instant responses and on-demand solutions, they assume that sellers are not interested in their business if the response takes too long after their request is sent. Remember, buyers are in sourcing mode— meaning they will typically send a request to 3 sellers and rarely just one. The quicker you reply, the more competition you eliminate.
The figures below show you just how important your response time is:
- 35-50% of sales go to the supplier who makes first contact*
- replying to an inbound lead within 1 hour, gives you 5 times more chances to sell*
On the VirtualExpo marketplaces, we ask our buyers to complete a survey, 8 days after submitting a request. The results show that among those who have received a reply from the supplier:
- 9% have already bought from the supplier
- 23% are in the process of negotiating with the supplier
So don’t wait and contact your leads as soon as possible! This is an opportunity to secure as many sales as possible. Your response time matters!
BE PROACTIVE WITH REQUESTS, AND YOU WILL SEE RESULTS.
* Source insidesales.com 2018
