So far this year, my team has made about 750K calls.

When you have data on >1M calls per year, you learn stuff.

And of those learnings, Contact Ratio is a hidden treasure.

Whether you’re prospecting or setting your own review appointments (break my heart), this simple change could create new wins for your business.

 

Want More At Bats?

You sell more when people answer the phone than when they don’t.

With our call volume, a small improvement in at-bats means a lot more appointments set. So we look at our Contact Ratio by employee and by agent.

(Contact Ratio simply indicates “What percent of my calls get answered?”)

Our employees range from 19% to 33%.

Here we go: two employees make 1000 calls. One gets 190 (19%) answers and the other gets 330 (33%).

The second employee had 74% more at-bats than the first one.

I’m like you: more sales with less effort = happy Matt.

We scratched our heads for a while. “How do you get more people to answer the phone?” Then it clicked.

We ran the numbers on Contact Ratio during different times of the day. Turns out that calls get answered 20-30% more often in the afternoon than in the morning.

Wha?

 

Here’s How We Applied This Idea

We make first-round calls in the afternoon.

Not too complicated, eh?

Meetings happen in the morning. Call-backs happen in the morning. 3rd round calls happen in the morning. Mid-to-late afternoon is for Round 1 calls.

 

Why Round 1?

It eliminates downstream work. Fewer calls to make in 2nd and 3rd rounds. Round 1 calls yield more than later rounds regardless of time of day anyway, so why not do them when people are most likely to answer?

When first-round calls are done, Round 2 moves to the afternoon. Then Round 3.

 

Some Implications

Effect on Call Volume

Calling when people answer means having more conversations.

More time conversing means less time dialing.

If I had a dollar for every agent who complained that their best closer doesn’t dial as much as their worst closer, I could buy lunch for a week.

But that’s a law of physics: you can’t dial and talk at the same time. Give me the choice between talking and dialing: I’ll take talking.

 

Effect on Closed/Won

At any level of closing skill, if you talk to more people, you’ll close more business. From that standpoint, it actually is a numbers game.

 

Effect on Lead Strategy

Once you start seeing how much business you can do in Round 1, you might reevaluate how many rounds of calls you make, period.

We’ve found that there’s a big drop-off after Round 3. And after Round 4 is an absolute cliff.

If you’re purchasing leads, and you’ve optimized Round 1, you might come out ahead by replacing your leads sooner. Laboring away on Round 5 might feel cost-effective, but the opportunity cost could be extreme.

(If you want to play with the math on that, contact me.)

Have you ever looked at your Contact Ratio before? Are you going to now? I’d love to hear from you.