Commissioned by outsourced communications provider Moneypenny, the research revealed that an increasing number of calls are judged by agents to be serious leads – with at least 40% of calls resulting in a valuation or viewing request and 10% claiming this figure to be as high as 80%.
Alongside a rising number of valuable phone calls, Moneypenny’s research also found live chat to be an increasingly important source of leads. 26% of agents have now adopted the technology and whilst that still leaves much room for improvement, it does put the sector ahead of IT and telecoms, financial services and automotive businesses.
Commenting on the findings, Samantha Jones, Head of Field Sales at Moneypenny said:
“Customers are increasingly using online searches for preliminary research and then ‘clicking to call’ directly from Google’s search results once they know what they want. The result is more calls to businesses and calls that stand to have far greater value.
“This survey has proved that the phone call is still king for customers, even with the boom in online searching, but agents need to be able to respond quickly and ensure they make every call count.
“We know that 69% of callers don’t leave voicemail messages, so it’s very important to answer every call, particularly as 97% of consumers give more business to companies who respond quickly. Efficient call handling is essential as missed calls cost business.”
